One thing we need to realize, and I have not mentioned yet in this passage is where does this whole process of temptation begin? The passage is clear …
“… each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”
Now, this is very important for us to understand. I hear men all the time blaming themselves for their own evil desires. However, Paul makes this comment in Romans 7:19-20;
“For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”
Paul makes a very important distinction in this passage. He specifically tells us that when we sin it is because there is sin living in us. A few verses before this one he has said that the problem he was having was because there is something in him, and in us, that causes us to sin. He calls this evil part of us our flesh or our sin nature.
So, you and I have something inside of us called our flesh or sin nature. We are new creations in Christ. That is who we are by the power and grace of God when we became born again. However, our flesh, which we were born with, still remains inside us. And the desires of our flesh is where the real problem lies.
Also, when Paul is writing this truth, he is just about ready to write Romans 8, perhaps the greatest chapter in the Bible and he says to us about himself and this battle he is in;
“What a wretched man I am!
Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?”
So, yes … even the Apostle Paul knew of this internal battle that we all have but then he declares thanks to God because He delivers him from this through Jesus Christ.
See, the question is not are we going to be in a battle and have to deal with temptation or not? We are all in this battle and the same thing is happening in every one of us when we are bring dragged away and enticed by our own evil desires. However, those desires are not coming from me.
They are not coming from my heart which used to be a heart of stone but is now a heart of flesh. They are not coming from my mind because I have been given the mind of Christ. Our evil desires are the desires of our flesh or sinful nature and our flesh is evil to the core. It is not getting better with age it gets worse. It is not being sanctified along with the rest of us.
The more we feed it with the desires that it gives us the stronger it grows, and it is the culprit for why we are addicted to porn and sexual sin.
So, it is our evil desires that carry us away and are enticed by sin. It is our evil desires that become conceived in our minds when we decide to give in to them. And it is our evil desires that give “birth to sin.”
That thought or image or memory that flashes across our path immediately awakens our own evil desires and then those desires go to work on our mind and body. These desires drag us closer to sin and start salivating as we find what it is looking for online. It is these desires that really take over our mind and body and presents to us the opportunity to sin and once it has convinced our mind sin is conceived and our body takes over from there and sin is born.
We take the action and do the sinful deed almost automatically because it is what we have done for so long. Plus, our bodies and minds have become addicted to the chemical bath our brain receives and we lust for the sexual pleasure.
Later in Romans 8, Paul writes these crucial words;
“Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.”
This is a matter of life or death. Obviously not immediate physical death or none of us would be alive. But instead of experiencing the abundant life that Jesus has for us, being filled with His Spirit and bearing the fruit of the Spirit … we live in shame, self-condemnation, self-loathing, guilt, and fear. We are not living the life Christ has for us but more as the death sin has for us.
How do we put to death the deeds of the flesh? I will address this after I finish the passage in James. But for now, please understand that when you allow the lusts of your flesh to drive you into more sexual sin it is driving you deeper into shame and defeat and further away from the real-life the Lord has for you. And that is why you have been sealed with the Spirit and need to be filled with the Spirit and walking in the Spirit.