Romans 8:12,13 - An Obligation

"We have an obligation .." What is this obligation and how does it work? Well it can work in two ways.

First, the Jews would have had a deeply ingrained sense of obligation to the Law. We all can have a similar sense of obligation to a set of rules, or feel we have to live out of our own strength in order to achieve a good goal. This way seems good. It is trying to achieve a good goal. For the Jew wanting to follow the Law was not a wrong desire. For the Christian wanting to do good is clearly not a bad thing! But the principle of law and self-effort does not work, it leads only to death. It does this because the source of power is our sinful nature, our flesh. Our nature is deeply corrupted by sin, and it will leads us only to death, even when our motives are good.

Secondly the "lusts of the flesh" often make demands upon us, demanding to be satisfied. This is not just the overtly sinful desires like sexual lust or greed, but fear and anxiety as well. The anxiety within you demands that you find some security, and we usually look for it in the wrong places. We look for security in circumstances. Circumstances will never gives us security, for circumstances can change in an instant. Now this is not saying that circumstances do not matter, they do, but we often have the order wrong. We think: if the circumstances were only such and such a way we would be happy and at peace. This is ultimately futile, for even if the circumstances go the way we like for a while, they will not stay that way forever. Moreover, seeking this way can lead us to trust in the wrong things, and to do wrong things. The right way is to look to God and trust in Him. Then we find true peace, and we also will often find that circumstances then start to come into line. But most importantly our trust is then in God, where it belongs, and our peace, our life, is not blown off course by a change of circumstances.

So we need to live by the Spirit, not by the flesh. When we live by the Spirit little by little our flesh comes under authority. Wrong desires, both of the sinful (eg lust) and natural (eg anxiety) type, start to die.