²⁴ Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.

Galatians 5:24

Dear God, what are the “passions and desires” of my sinful nature?

I was listening to a sermon this morning, and the pastor was talking about greed. He referenced the story in Luke where a man shouts out to Jesus to make his brother share inheritance equitably, and Jesus turns it into a teachable moment about greed (Luke 12:13-21). And now I just came across this verse.

I was thinking yesterday about something a man I know told me years ago. It was a self-perceived sin he had committed and continued to struggle with, and the shame from it drove him away from you. I don’t know what made me think of it yesterday, but I was thinking that what he struggled with is something that most men and women deal with at some point. And while it is not your best for us and it is something we need to wrestle with, it does not make him unique. And yet Satan used the shame of it to drive him from you. And, to this day, Satan has won that battle and is winning the war with this man. He still rejects you because you are the “rule maker,” and the best way for him to deal with breaking the “rules” isn’t to turn loose, accept your forgiveness, and press on into the life you have for him. No, it’s just to get rid of the rule maker and pursue his own passions.

Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, I can be greedy. I can be selfish. I can be all kinds of things. And I wrestle with those. But it’s not so that you won’t be mad at me. It’s because I’ve learned over the years that they don’t lead to happiness. They are not conducive to giving your Spirit room in my life to grow and produce the fruit Paul talks about in Galatians 5:22-23 (the two verses preceding today’s verse). So I give you my sin. I nail it to the cross. I will then pick up Jesus’s cross, the cross of a many sacrificed for me, and follow you. I know from experience that that is the only effective way to live my life.

I pray all of this under your holy Lordship and through Jesus’s life, death, and resurrections,

Amen