Are you choosing the old nature?

“What is truth?” said Pilate. After he had said this, he went out to the Jews again and told them, “I find no grounds for charging Him. You have a custom that I release one prisoner to you at the Passover. So, do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?” They shouted back, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” Now Barabbas was a revolutionary”.

John 18:38-40

Hcsb Bible

This is a common story that many people know. Especially if you grew up in church. A lot of times it is pointed out around Easter time and reasonably so since it happens right before the crucifixion and the ascension of Jesus.

A lot of people will constantly attack the Jews because of this terrible choice that they made. They chose a murder and robber and rebel over the Son of God. But let’s look at something similar.

As Christians, how many times do we have the choice of following Jesus and choosing him or to sin and choose Satan or the old man. We all were unbelievers before Jesus and that is called the “old man/woman”. How many times do we choose to go with the old man instead of Jesus? In our daily lives. When we are with friends that don’t go to church, when we are alone with our computers, playing our video games.

The parallel with Barabbas and our old nature is very similar. When they chose Barabbas, they chose for the man to possibly cause more trouble by either robbing, killing or committing another crime. This would cause even more trouble for the Jewish people that already were ruled by Roman with strict enforcement.

If we choose the old man or our old nature, we open the opportunity for Satan to start controlling our minds and lives and thus causing problems with our relationships, friendships and work life. The more we sin, the more like Satan we become and further from God we get.

But, if we choose to go with Jesus and to follow him, we will be closer to God. We will grow our peace that is beyond understanding. We won’t be the reason for the chaos in our lives. Now, it won’t be a field of roses and perfect but this is clearly the much better option.

Now we have to ask ourselves why though. Why did the Jews choose Barabbas and why do we choose our old nature of sin? Well for one, it’s easy and if we go this route, it feels good and the crowd will cheer us on as we do it. Another reason is that if we choose to follow Jesus, we will be convicted of the times that we do sin. People generally don’t like it when they have to admit when they’re wrong but this has to happen in order to follow Jesus.

Even though it can be hard, I implore you to choose Jesus. Choose the path of righteousness. Choose the path that leads to eternal life. But it’s not my decision to make for you since I’ve already chose my path. It’s up to you. Do you choose the old nature or do you choose the new man and better way of Jesus?

If you have any questions or disagreements just comment below or message me and I’ll respond when I can. I hope you are having a great day.