What We Are and What We Can Be

"So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature." Galatians 5:16

Remember, we are compared with what we could be, not just what we should be. God being who He is, and Jesus Christ being His risen and all-powerful Son, anything we ought to be we can be. Anything that God has declared that we should be we can be. In the wonderful book of Romans, perhaps the greatest and most profound book in the Bible, 7 tells us of a man who is struggling and wanting to be something that he feels he cannot be. Finally he gives up and says, "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" (verse 24). Immediately, Paul says, "Thanks be to God! . . . because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death" (25; 8:2). In Galatians 5:22-23 we read, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." That is what we ought to be and what we can be. Now compare that with what we are.


Thought
As we walk step-by-step by means of the Spirit, he produces in us the product of His control--the fruit of the Spirit. If we walk out of His control the acts of the sinful nature result.

By A. W. Tozer "Rut, Rot or Revival" - Chapter # Two Errors in Thinking