In Romans 8:5 the Apostle Paul describes our decision to leave behind our sinful nature as mind set we determined to have. He says, “Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.” Have you made up your mind to set the course of your life on growing the evidences of God’s grace that the Holy Spirit desires? We sometimes struggle with taking on this mindset because we don’t want to give up our independence. We can sometimes struggle with taking on this mindset because we don’t fully trust in what’s God’s best for our lives. We sometimes struggle with this mindset because we don’t want to give up things that only provide us with short-term satisfaction. We sometimes can form attachments to temporary things that offer no real long-term benefit.
To take an example from the secular world, we might be trying to decide between two jobs. One job might have better work hours and the other job might offer a higher salary. We imagine what it would be like for us to work shorter hours and have a better work-life balance. We also imagine what we could do with all of those extra hours in the week. We do all of this while at the same time considering how we would spend all the extra money that we would earn from the job with the higher salary. We create an attachment to both the extra time we will have and the extra money.
When it comes right down to the time we will decide we realize we will not be satisfied with either option because we will have to give up the benefits of one of the choices—either the time or the money. What we’ve created is a desire to (we want to) have our cake and eat it too. We desire some of the outcomes that our sinful nature produces even though they are temporary.
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