Through the deception of the evil one, sin entered God’s creation and broke our oneness with God.  Our perspective shifted from God to ourselves, and we became self-centered slaves to sin, which caused instant spiritual death and leads to eventual physical death.  Without our original, direct fellowship with God, we became eternally bound to a sin nature.  Within the confines of this sin nature, we do whatever we feel and sense as if we are free, when in reality we are controlled by a nature that has blinded us to the truth.  But, Christ came to give sight to the spiritually blind and redeem mankind; He gives us instant spiritual life and the promise of an eternal resurrection to life. 

As a Christian, we have had our sin nature replaced by a spirit nature and have the Holy Spirit living within us.  Although temptation and sin are still present in this world, we are spiritually dead to sin.  In Christ, we now have a spirit nature that gives us an eternal perspective.  We do not have two natures warring within us.  We still have our fleshly tendencies due to the scars of the past and the deception of the evil one, but we now have a choice to either yield to the flesh or to the spirit. 

Struggling with sin is not a sign that we are not a Christian but a sign that we have chosen to place our identity within the world instead of within Christ.  At first Satan deceives us into meeting our needs within the world and then traps us by making us believe that we can overcome our patterns of sin in our own strength; he knows this leads to exhaustion and defeat, causing us to remain blinded by the flesh.  But, Jesus gave Himself as our sacrifice and empowers us to stand firm in His divine victory, not fight in the flesh for our own victory.  A fleshly weakness needs to be overcome by some power that is beyond the realm of the flesh.  This power is found within the loving, holy sacrifice of Christ who not only works within us but also reveals Himself and reaches out to us through the body of believers.  Therefore, Satan’s desire is to isolate us and bring us under his power of deception, but as a Christian, we have been given the mind of and the power of Christ; He lives in us.  We must put on the mind of Christ every day and renew our own minds by aligning our will with His will. 

When we understand our sealed identity in Christ, we choose to relinquish the power of the past and release the power of Christ. Through the victory of Christ, the chains of deception and of the past are broken, and we have every right and power to command life and freedom to reign in our lives in the name of Jesus.