The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"Yield Yourselves"
Part 3 - A Dual Yielding
"Whether yielding the self or the body, we do so joyfully in the wonder of Christ's resurrection life serving as the Life of our lives."
"Yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God" (Romans 6:13).
The Apostle Paul calls born again believers to a dual yielding in his epistle to the Romans. Paul mandates the acknowledgement of our selves as spiritually united to the Lord Jesus, and thus alive unto God through our risen Savior's indwelling presence. We present our selves not just as our selves, but as our selves united to the Spirit of Christ. The Apostle then calls us to recognize our "members" as "instruments of righteousness." This refers to our earthly components and faculties - our "body" or "flesh" - that do not yet dwell in our Lord's direct presence, but belong to Him as the means whereby He reveals through us "the power of His resurrection" (Philippians 3:10).
"If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness" (Romans 8:10).
"The flesh lusteth against the spirit" (Galatians 5:17).
Believers are living spirits, alive in the life of Christ, who dwell in bodies dead in the sense of requiring the infusion of our Lord's risen life to motivate, guide, and empower lives of faith and obedience. Thankfully, Paul assures us of such grace:
"But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken (enliven) your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you" (Romans 8:11).
In order to think, speak, act, and relate in accordance with God's will, resurrections are required. The Christ of our born again spirits must infuse His life within and upon our natural bodies to enable godliness. Indeed, left to itself, a "body of sin" that is "dead because of sin" will always sin (Romans 6:6). Thus, we present our bodies to God as "living sacrifices" because we are confident our Lord will impart the grace of His life to enliven our capacity to trust and obey Him (Romans 12:1). Like our selves yielded in the confidence of being already enlivened by the indwelling Christ, we yield our bodies not yet enlivened in the assurance the Holy Spirit will moment by moment infuse our earthly members with Christ's life.
Whether yielding the self or the body, we do so joyfully in the wonder of Christ's resurrection life serving as the Life of our lives. In the innermost depths of our being, His empty tomb means that our spirit is full - "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27). Regarding our earthly frame and faculties, our Savior's resurrection promises that the same power that raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will empower us as we trust God, and as we properly yield both self and body in the light of truth. Life and death presently exist in believers. This explains the great challenge we face in walking with God. However, it also presents the great opportunity to rejoice in a resurrection that has already taken place in us, and in countless other moments of grace that will take place as we yield self and body in the light of the empty tomb, our full spirits, and our bodies ever subject to being enlivened by the presence and power of Christ's risen life.
"For I delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin" (Romans 7:22-25).
"Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live."
(Romans 8:12-13)
Weekly Memory Verse
Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied.
(Jude 1:2)
7157
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