Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. Colossians 3:5
While we continue to grapple with our sinful nature as did Paul, as he expressed so honestly in his letter to the Romans…
18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. Romans 7:18
…it is incumbent upon us to consider the impulses of “immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed,” as dead to us.
While the imagery is uncomfortable, circumcision adequately illustrates an act that removes something that thereafter is dead.
And in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Colossians 2:11
The issue of our propensity to contemplate and at times fall into sin cannot be eradicated while we tread this earth. While sin might be besetting, the realization that against it we must constantly battle is even more so. It is comforting to know that “greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world.”
3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, 4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. 2 Corinthians 10:3–4
I hate to continue with my tendency to use baseball analogies, but good hitters have short memories. They may have struck out three times in a row, but their mindset on their fourth try is one which foresees slicing a ball deep in the gap and clearing the bases. We need to have that mindset, and with time, the “strikes” will only be an occasional and momentary lapse, not a humiliating walk back to the dugout.
6 For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, 7 and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them. Colossians 3:6–7)
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