I need to remind myself that I have a new nature.
This topic was the theme of the sermon, “Alive to God,” this past Easter Sunday on April 20, 2025.
From a biblical, spiritual perspective, a person’s nature is the inner being or condition of the heart and soul.
Just like there are two types of people—believers and nonbelievers—there are two types of natures that can exist inside a person.
The nonbeliever has a sinful nature, an old nature, that is naturally inclined toward sin, rebellion, selfishness, and separation from God.
In Romans 7:18 in the Bible, the scripture says, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.”
As an unbeliever in the past, I was powerless over my sinful behavior and needed God’s grace through Christ to help me overcome my sin.
As a believer, I am still powerless over my sin if I live in the flesh and need the nudging of the Holy Spirit to help me live a godly life by walking in the Spirit.
When I accepted Jesus’ death as payment for my sin, I received a new nature from the Holy Spirit, a nature that desires to love God and others.
With this new nature, I am capable of obeying the two greatest commandments of Jesus—to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love my neighbor as myself. (Luke 10:27)
2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
When I met Christ at age 20, I struggled with acting in my new nature. I wrestled with the flesh that was making war with the Holy Spirit (new nature) within my soul.
I struggled for years with rebellion against my parents even after I became a Christian so much so that it may have appeared to others that I was not a believer at all.
Time passed while my nature underwent gradual transformation to slowly want to love, serve, and obey Christ.
I have not arrived, but I think I am headed in the right direction.
I eventually came around to submitting to the authority first of my earthly father, my Pop, and then later came around to truly loving my mom after my daddy died.
I realize now that my new nature had some spiritual transformation to go through, namely sanctification, which came into play the moment I accepted Christ as my Savior from my sins.
Something else that has taken time in my Christian walk is absorbing the process of surrendering my life and will to the Lordship of Christ.
Wrestling comes with Jesus’ Lordship every time the Holy Spirit shows me another sin in my life to deal with.
So to me, receiving Christ’s righteousness comes with the process of sanctification, which I will be continually welcoming until I meet Jesus one day in person.
The verse, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus,” (Romans 6:11) encourages me to walk with Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit so that I can be transformed, and my new nature will reflect the love of God more and more.
Thus, I am in a battle where I am consistently pursuing righteousness and regularly saying “No” to sin.
Ultimately, I have repented of my allegiance to sin as I have been united with Christ’s death, and I now have an allegiance to Jesus, as I have been united with His resurrection.
I am reminded of the apostle Paul’s admittance of the battle within him, which is within me too.
In Romans, Paul writes, “For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” (Romans 7:22-25)
I also know this, “For to set the mind on the flesh is death but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” (Romans 8:6)
A battle exists between the flesh and the Spirit in every believer. Letting my new nature overcome the flesh is key to my freedom as a Christian.
I do know that this battle will end one day, when I die or when Christ comes again, and that gives me hope.
I also know that experiencing this life and peace from setting my mind on the Spirit is beyond compare.
I am so grateful.
–Ann Elizabeth Yeager