Romans 8:12,13 - If you live according to the flesh you will die

8:12

“So then brothers we are debtors ...” We have an obligation (as the NIV and others put it), but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. We can take this in two ways. One is that we do not have an obligation to any sinful lusts. This is true, but I don’t think it is Paul’s emphasis here. The other way of taking it, is that we do not have an obligation to serve God purely out of our own strength. For Paul has been arguing that living according to the flesh leads only to slavery and death. Yet there is still a strong urge within us that it is the way that we must serve God that way. We can refuse to give in to that urge.

8:13

“For if you live by the flesh you will die”. The flesh will try to exert itself, and it does so by lying. Saying we should use all our effort to serve God sounds so right, and when the Spirit is at work within us we will indeed put all our effort into serving God, but it is working together with God. If we try to please God with all our effort, but without God, then it leads nowhere good. The flesh will also try and deceive by urging us to seek the safe way, to seek security. Instead of following this way, we should “put to death the misdeeds of the body” by the Spirit. We work in cooperation with Him. The Spirit can do what we are powerless to do.