Romans 8:12-13(NKJV) 12Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
This week we are dealing with the last area of our being which needs to be put in order if we are going to walk with our spirit in control. We know that the spirit must be built up by feeding on the Word of God and by exercising through praying in tongues and other spiritual activities. We know we must renew our mind with the Word of God so that our intellect, will and emotions will be changed to think like God thinks. The question this week has been, “What do we do about our flesh?”, while we are growing into the walk of the spirit.
So far we have focused on developing an awareness of the power of the new birth. We are in the spirit because we are born again. We also must believe that the death of Jesus was for our sin and because of that, we can and must see ourselves as dead to sin and alive to God. As we meditate on these truths it will help us resist the temptations that inevitably come into every one of our lives.
Yesterday we focused on the fact that the “Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead” dwells in us and the 11th verse tells us that this spirit can “quicken” or make alive our mortal bodies. The term mortal is used to let us know that Paul is not talking about the bodies we will have in eternity, but it is talking about these bodies that we struggle to bring into obedience to the Word of God right here on earth.
There are two ways that this helps us. First of all, we need to remember that the Holy Spirit is with us every moment of every day. As we cultivate that awareness it will affect the choices we make. We will have to sin with the knowledge that the Lord is right there watching us sin. Second, we need to remember that the power of the Holy Spirit can and will influence even our bodies in order to help us overcome sin while we are growing in our walk of the spirit.
Today I want to talk about the next couple of verses in Romans 8. Paul reminds the Romans of something that I find very interesting given the context of this chapter. He tells them that they are not debtors to the flesh but they are debtors to the spirit. I want to ask you today, “Who do you owe?”
In our society today we are no stranger to the idea of debt. It is such a part of our culture that we usually take for granted that we are going to be in debt. I am not saying this is either a good or necessary condition, but it is where our culture is right now. In Paul’s day that was not the case.
In Bible times, if you were in debt it was a very bad thing. Proverbs tells us the borrower is the slave of the lender. Although this is just as true today, the idea of what that meant was much more important in their society. Slavery was a very real fact of life in those days. If you were in debt you were no better than a slave. You had no choices, no freedom, your life was not your own.
Paul is drawing on this idea to make the Roman church see something very important. They were no longer slaves to the flesh. They did not owe the flesh anything. Jesus paid the debt that was owed by the flesh. This means that they no longer were obligated to serve the flesh. As far as the flesh is concerned, their life was their own again.
This is true for us as well. Although we do not tend to have the same sense of servitude where debt is concerned, we do feel the pressure of the flesh. The flesh pushes us to buy what we cannot afford. It pushes us to relationships we know are not right. It pushes us to “eat, drink and be merry” in ways we know are not godly but we are pressed to do them anyway. I want you to know today that you do not owe the flesh anything. You are free from the debt to the flesh because the blood of Jesus paid for it.
This side of what Paul is saying can be a powerful tool that will set us free in many ways. Nevertheless, there is another side to this truth that Paul also uses to help the Romans deal with the flesh. We are not debtors to the flesh but we are debtors to the spirit. We owe the Spirit of God everything. The source of our life is not the flesh it is the Spirit. If it were not for the Spirit you would be on your way to an eternity separated from God. You would have no access to God and his power. You would not be who you are.
Since I am a debtor to the spirit, I must be willing to “pay” that debt by focusing my life on spiritual things and not the flesh. When temptation comes, I need to realize that my life is not my own. Jesus bought it with a price, his precious blood. When temptation comes, if we have cultivated the fact that we do owe the spirit, we will be less inclined to give in to the temptation. I owe God better. I am a debtor to live life the way he wants me to because of what he did for me.
Can this really help me deal with the flesh as I grow in the spirit? The more we meditate on the truth that we owe God our lives, the more positive pressure will be on us to not to betray that debt by yielding to the temptation. We love God. We want to please the Father. We are grateful for all he has done for us. How can we just allow things that hurt him into our lives without at least trying to resist. We cannot.
Take a moment right now and acknowledge that Jesus paid the debt we owed the flesh. More important acknowledge that we do owe Jesus everything. All that is good in our lives we owe to God. More important, we owe the Lord our eternity. Given that debt, we owe God the resistance to the flesh that will keep us as we grow in our walk of the spirit.
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