Men of Integrity, the devotional I read daily, had a good illustration today of how and why Christians, though set free by the new birth from the irresistible pull of sin, sometimes still sin.
The law of gravity is universal—until you get on an airplane. The Wright brothers didn't eradicate the law of gravity. They rendered it inoperative by the operation of a higher law called aerodynamics. If that higher law stops working, if an engine goes out, the plane will tumble to the ground because the first law isn't dead.
When you combine the combustion of the Holy Spirit with the speed of obedience and the airflow of holiness, you're lifted to a new plane of spiritual life because the power of the Spirit working in you transcends the law of sin and death.
Unbelievers often see Christians fail, and use that failure as an excuse to avoid the faith altogether, so it's important to Christians and unbelievers alike to understand why this happens.
As in this illustration, the new birth sets the Christian free from the power of sin to be able to live as God intended us to, just as the airplane sets us free of the power of gravity to be able to fly.
But if the airplane's engine goes out, or you run out of fuel, or you aren't paying attention to what you're doing, the plane can crash. So it is with the Christian: when we don't properly "maintenance" the aircraft of our faith, or if we get careless, we find ourselves crashing back into sin.
That's why it's so important to read the Bible often, pray, have accountability with other Christians, and regularly attend a good Bible-believing church. They help us keep flying smoothly.
Also, the higher we fly and the farther we get from flirting with sin, then if we do encounter problems, we have a lot more time to identify and correct our problem before crashing, than if we had been skimming the ground all along.
But you can't fly at all if you don't have an airplane...
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