"Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" (Romans 6.16, emphasis added)That word right there...yield. It's important. Verses 12-14 address not letting lust overpower your mortal body and using your members for the right reasons. Paul is talking about the hard stuff here. The stuff your kids are gonna want/need to know about, and you're going to have to tell them. Do you have the spiritual guts to be so blunt?
To review verse 16, whenever you YIELD you become servant to that side. Where else do we see yield in the scriptures? Mosiah.
"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father" (Mosiah 3.19, emphasis added)Again the yieldage. What means it? We have to yield to get God in our lives, we have to choose that path. That last half says become like a kid, and lists attributes. Start from humility and move forward. Are these arbitrary attributes slapped together? If you think so, time to reread my last post. There's a formula here; a list (Romans 5.3-5). And when we yield, what does that mean?
It means you STOP FIGHTING. You surrender. You give yourself to God. And what does that do? How about "builds humility" for $1 million. Where's the most well-known humility scripture? Ether.
"And if men come unto to me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them" (Ether 12.27)Ah yes, the ol' weakness to be humbled scripture. Well what does the Lord require? 1. Humility. 2. FAITH. Oh look, that thing I've been talking about in depth. Amazing.
But seriously. Yielding. Surrendering. It takes effort. IF YOU THINK YOU CAN DO IT ALONE THEN YOUR TRANSITION ISN'T DONE YET. THE NATURAL MAN DOESN'T LIKE THE IDEA OF SURRENDERING. But it needs to be done. You have to YIELD and give yourself to God in order for him to work in you.
And may I now venture into a realm where I would (were my blog public) very openly and quickly receive criticism. Could not one's level of attraction be considered a "weakness" spoken of in verse 27? Does God not then promise to make such a "weakness" strong? I realize this will be seen by some as borderline blasphemous. My only retort: Do you have the spiritual guts to have ENOUGH FAITH to surrender yourself to God and his mighty plan with enough humility to have him make your weaknesses strengths? I don't yet, but this isn't all or nothing.
It's life. And life is a process. Not a verdict.
