Your New Skipper
We are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live
according to the flesh--for if you are living according to
the flesh, you must die (Romans 8:12, 13).
When I was in the Navy, we called the captain of our ship
"the Old Man." Our Old Man was tough and crusty and nobody
liked him. He used to go out drinking with all his chiefs
while belittling and harassing his junior officers and
making life miserable for the rest of us. He was not a good
example of a naval officer. So when our Old Man got
transferred to another ship, we all rejoiced. It was a great
day for our ship.
Then we got a new skipper--a new Old Man. The old Old Man no
longer had any authority over us; he was gone--completely
out of the picture. But I was trained under that Old Man. So
how do you think I related to the new Old Man? At first I
responded to him just like I had been conditioned to respond
to the old skipper. I tiptoed around him expecting him to
bite my head off. That's how I had lived for two years
around my first skipper.
But as I got to know the new skipper, I realized that he
wasn't a crusty old tyrant like my old Old Man. He wasn't
out to harass his crew; he was a good guy, really concerned
about us. But I had been programmed for two years to react a
certain way when I saw a captain's braids. I didn't need to
react that way any longer, but it took several months to
recondition myself to the new skipper.
You also once served under a cruel, self-serving skipper:
your old sinful self with its sinful nature. The admiral of
that fleet is Satan himself, the prince of darkness. But by
God's grace you have been transferred into Christ's kingdom
(Colossians 1:13). You now have a new skipper: your new self
which is infused with the divine nature of Jesus Christ,
your new admiral. As a child of God, a saint, you are no
longer under the authority of your old Old Man. He is dead,
buried, gone forever.
So why do you still react as if your old skipper were still
in control of your behavior?
Why do you still react as if your old skipper were still
in control of your behavior? Because while you served under
it, your old self trained and conditioned your actions,
reactions, emotional responses, thought patterns, memories,
and habits in a part of your brain called "the flesh." The
flesh is that tendency within each person to operate
independently of God and to center his interest on himself.
An unsaved person functions totally in the flesh (Romans
8:7, 8), worshipping and serving the creature rather than
the Creator (Romans 1:25). Such persons "live for
themselves" (2 Corinthians 5:15), even though many of their
activities may appear to be motivated by selflessness and
concern for others.
When you were born again, your old self died and your new
self came to life, and you were made a partaker of Christ's
divine nature. But your flesh remains. You brought to your
Christian commitment a fully conditioned mind-set and
lifestyle developed apart from God and centered on yourself.
Since you were born physically alive but spiritually dead,
you had neither the presence of God nor the knowledge of
God's ways. So you learned to live your life independently
of God. It is this learned independence that makes the flesh
hostile toward God.
During the years you spent separated from God, your worldly
experiences thoroughly programmed your brain with thought
patterns, memory traces, responses, and habits which are
alien to God. So even though your old self is gone, your
flesh remains in opposition to God as a preprogrammed
propensity for sin, which is living independently of God.
Be aware that you no longer have to obey that preprogrammed
bent to live independently of God. You are a child of God,
and you are free to put to death those fleshly deeds and
obey Christ.
Dr. Anderson, Freedom in Christ and Harvest House Publishers www.ficm.org