I have still been amazed today that Jesus really was tempted to bow down to Satan. I was talking about it at lunch and Andy G and I began talking about how it was a real temptation for Jesus to turn the rocks into bread. Andy said a good one, “He probably had to deliberately prevent Himself from doing that.”
If something is in your nature, you do it based on your instinct. You do it as a reflex. When I’m hungry, I eat something, when I’m thirsty, I get up and get a drink. When you can take a rock and POOF make it into bread, you have to be deliberate about not doing it. This is where being made into a new creation comes in. I do NOT live any longer, but Christ lives in me. The life I live I live in Him. That is what works in us to put off old destructive habits and develop holy ones; habits that are in the likeness of Jesus’ habits.
These habits are NOT what make us Christian or saved or anything. These habits are how our rebirth shows up and manifests itself. To do these habits out of obligation or law is to prop up a dead body and move it around acting like it’s alive.
Let our righteous acts come out our of the recreation of our habits. May we develop a heavenly nature that by reflex does what the Spirit wishes, as we deliberately walk in His ways.