The Secret of Living in the Spirit — Zac Poonen

Sin’s Mastery and the Promise of Grace

I have been thinking of late how much we, in seeking after holiness, which has been our emphasis, could be depending upon our flesh more than upon the Holy Spirit. And that could be the reason why we never seem to break through.

We never seem to come into that life that the Bible speaks about. We are all familiar with the verse that we often quote in this church, Romans 6, 14. Sin shall not be master over you, for we are not under law, but under grace.

Now I think some of us read it like this, sin should not be master over you. You see the difference? Sin should not be master over you is the way I think most, or many of us, read it. That is a command, sin should not be master over you.

Sin shall not be master over you is a promise. And the difference between a promise and a commandment is, a promise is what God promises to do for us, and a commandment is what we have to do. And I really believe that that is the problem with some who are still struggling and defeated.

And the rest of the verse makes it more clear. Sin shall not be master over you, because you are not under law. That means you are not going to be trying to overcome sin by your own struggle. That's the meaning of law.

But you are under grace. The grace is going to help you to overcome sin. I want you to think about that. I want to speak especially to those who, like Jesus said, come to me those who are weary and heavy laden.

Are there people here who are weary and heavy laden after years of struggling to overcome sin? Whatever, you know, the Bible speaks about the sin which so easily besets us. And I think all of us can think of one sin that very easily besets us.

It could be different with different people. It could be anger, very often. It could be sexually lustful thinking or sexually lustful habits, or it could be discouragement, which is also a sin, because the Bible says we have to rejoice in the Lord always.

So think of that which sin which so easily besets you. You know, in Hebrews 12, it says about the sin which so easily besets us, which we must cast off. If we are to run the race looking unto Jesus. And so if you are weary and heavy laden, not if you say, yeah, it would be a good thing if I could get victory.

I mean, I'm not all that keen on it, but I'm not really weary and heavy laden, but I think it'd be a good idea if I could get victory over sin. I'm not speaking to those. Jesus is not inviting such people.

He's inviting those who are weary and heavy laden, or like I say, sick and tired of being defeated, defeated, defeated, and wondering why. You've been trying to claim Romans 6, 14, but reading it as sin should not have dominion over you.

Well, if you're weary and heavy laden, the Lord invites us to come to him. The other person the Lord invites to come to him is the first verse is Matthew 11, 28. The second one is John 7, 37. If any man thirst, let him come to me.

See, those are two very important verses. Who does Jesus invite to come to him? Not everybody. Those who are weary and heavy laden, and because they are weary and heavy laden, are thirsting because they are dry.

Thirsty is a man who's dry, and he's longing for a drink of water. And then in that passage, Jesus is referring to the Holy Spirit as water is a picture of the Holy Spirit. So those who are longing for the power and fullness of the Holy Spirit, and not just longing, but thirsting, Jesus says, come to me.

Not those who say, well, I think it would be a good thing if I could speak in tongues or be filled with the Spirit. I mean, it's not a great urgency. Maybe next year, sometime. And I want other things to do.

I can't be seeking this all the time. He's not inviting you. It's those who are thirsty. So, it's only a certain category of people I've discovered through the years, who really enter into this Spirit-filled life of overcoming, and not only overcoming, but empowerment for service.

It's open to all of us, but not everybody enters in. Most Christians never, never enter into this life, even before they die. That's sad, isn't it? I mean, if that was the Old Covenant, I could understand that, that they couldn't enter into it in the Old Covenant, because there was no such opportunity under the Old Covenant.

They were under law. They had to just keep struggling until they die, never get victory, and die. And the best of them, whether it's Moses, Elijah, John the Baptist, he died wondering, is Jesus the Messiah, in prison?

That wasn't the best way to die, anyway. David died not forgiving someone. Moses died, and his last act was an act of disobedience to God, striking the rock. But they were under law. But when you think of people in the New Covenant, people like Paul towards the end of his life saying, I finished my course, I fought a good fight, I kept the faith, and there's only a crown of righteousness waiting for me now.

No regrets. I mean, you can't say that Paul didn't wish that he had been converted when he was five or ten. He was converted when he was thirty. So how does he say, I finished my course? Can you live as a non-Christian?

Not only a non-Christian, Paul was against Christ for thirty years, killing believers and imprisoning them, and none of us have been so bad. And mess up thirty years of his life like this and still say, I finished my course?

See that's the wonderful thing about grace. That God who sees the future, it's very difficult to explain this. Because in mathematics, if there's a big problem you're solving, step one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, all the way to fifteen steps before you get the answer.

If you make a mistake at step two, you'll never get the right answer. If you make a mistake at step fourteen, you won't get the right answer. So we think that if I messed up my life somewhere earlier on in my life, I can never fulfill God's will.

And God doesn't work according to mathematical rules. Because if that were the case, Paul's first thirty years was wiped out. How did he finish the course? Think about that. He says in 2 Timothy 4, I finished my course.

I've kept the faith. The reason is that God in his foreknowledge, he looks into the future and he knows that many years we are in ignorance. And this wonderful verse which you, I've often quoted and if you don't know it, you must learn it today, Acts 17 .30.

Don't forget the reference, Acts 17 .30. The times of ignorance God overlooks. He overlooks the times of ignorance and commands people now to repent. That's a tremendously liberating verse because it not only refers to the times when I was ignorant about how my sins could be forgiven.

Maybe for years I thought, I'm going to church, living a good life, I'm a Christian. That's what I thought for nineteen and a half years. Once in a while I would say Lord Jesus come into my heart, but I was never sure.

I lived nineteen and a half years like that and then I was forgiven. So I was ignorant and I'm very thankful that all the stupid things I did in those nineteen and a half years, God says, I overlook it.

Not only I forgive it, but I overlook it. And then I think of the years after I was born again, when I was ignorant, not of how to be forgiven, that I learned already. Now I was ignorant of how to live in the new covenant, how to live an overcoming life.

How could I know if nobody taught me? And it took years to study it myself in the scriptures or to find godly people who could tell me what the new covenant was, that there is a possibility of a life of victory.

So in a sense those were also years of ignorance at stage two. And God overlooks that. I tell you, I'm extremely thankful. To me anyway, it's a great encouragement that God overlooks the times of ignorance when I was ignorant of forgiveness of sins and the times of ignorance when I didn't understand what the new covenant was all about or how victory over sin was essential.

Not a sort of extra which you can have if you want or don't want if you don't want. It's like the ice cream at the end of the meal if you're afraid of diabetes, don't eat it. If you want to eat it, you can eat it.

It's not optional. It's essential. But I was ignorant. And I think many of you will feel that that's been your experience too. Here's a liberating verse. Not a verse which encourages us to keep on sinning.

Willful Sin and the Danger of Treating Grace as Cheap

Those who take this verse and say, oh well, God will keep on overlooking my times of ignorance so I can keep on doing what I like, for you there's another verse. And that's Hebrews 10 and verse 26. For those who want to take advantage of God's mercy and grace, it's not Acts 17 30 but Hebrews 10 26.

If we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, then there is no more sacrifice for sin. But a certain terrifying expectation of judgment, when it says in verse 26, we, well, the person who wrote it is obviously a spirit filled believer, otherwise he wouldn't be commanded to write the book of Hebrews, he includes himself.

It's not just you people. If we go on sinning willfully, is it possible for a person who is once filled with the spirit still to come to a place where he begins to sin willfully? It's go on. It's not one willful sin.

I think all of us, after we are born again, have done some willful sins, but go on sinning willfully. There's a difference between the present continuous of going on doing something. It's a warning for such people, that means those who want to take advantage of God's grace.

It doesn't matter if he sins, because the blood of Jesus will cleanse us. It says here that such a person, verse 29, last part, he has regarded the blood of Christ as something unclean. Boy, how do you regard the blood of Christ as something unclean, or the proper translation of that word would be common.

Common means something easily available, like tap water. Doesn't matter if my hands get dirty, because water is cheap. Or we could read it like this, he has treated the blood of Christ as something cheap, because he says it doesn't matter if we sin.

I'll tell you honestly, if you have known the Lord for two years, and your attitude is, well it doesn't matter if we sin, I only want to say that you're on very dangerous ground. Very dangerous ground, the ground underneath your feet can sink.

You better get away from that place. But if you're sincere, and I believe basically it's sincerity that God looks for. And if you're sincere, you don't have to feel condemned by such verses, never. Because God loves honest people, those who are sincerely seeking.

Sincerity, Faith, and Freedom from Hypocrisy

To me one of the greatest commendations that Jesus gave, there are a number of commendations that Jesus gave to different people, unbelievers by the way. We never think of commending an unbeliever, because we think there can be nothing good in an unbeliever, but let me tell you, there was an unbelieving military man, a Roman centurion whom God commended saying, boy I've never seen such faith in Israel.

An unbeliever had more faith in Jesus than all those Jews who studied the Bible. A military Roman soldier, when he looked at Jesus on the cross, said, this is the Son of God, and the Pharisees called him the devil, Beelzebul.

So knowing the Bible is not the answer. But here is another commendation to an unbeliever which is very important. John chapter 1, here's an unbeliever called Nathanael, he's not a Christian, he's not a disciple of Jesus, in fact he despises anybody who comes from Nazareth.

When Philip came to him and said, we found Jesus, the Messiah, verse 45, John 1, 45. Philip found Nathanael and told him, we found the one who Moses spoke about, the Messiah, he's come from Nazareth. He said, Nazareth?

Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Have you ever thought of that, I mean I've never heard of that said about any town in India, can any good thing come out of there? I mean people say that about some races.

Can anything good come out of people of that race? People despise certain caste, people say, can anything good come out of that caste? But a town, can anything good come out of that town? That is how Nathanael was.

And Jesus, I'm sure Jesus sensed in his spirit what Nathanael was saying because later on he says, Nathanael, Jesus tells him in verse 48, before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree. How is that?

The Holy Spirit showed him, Holy Spirit showed Jesus, Nathanael under the fig tree, maybe he was praying but despising those who come from Nazareth. Jesus knew that. And Jesus says, there is a man, verse 47, in whom there is no hypocrisy.

I read that, I said, Lord, if you can give that one testimony about me, I mean, to say about me, Lord, that you've never found such great faith in India, I don't want that, I don't expect that, because I don't think it's true.

But if you can say about me this, that there's a man in whom there's no hypocrisy, Lord, I want that. Because there's not a, when I say, when the Lord says there's nobody like, who's got faith like this in India or the world, that's a comparison.

I don't want that, I don't want to compare myself to anyone. But when the Lord says there's no hypocrisy in that person, that's not a comparison, that can be said about all of us. Do you want that? I long for it.

I long that every moment of my life, the Lord will say, there's no hypocrisy in him. Even when you're defeated, Nathanael was not having victory over sin, he was not, he hadn't received the Holy Spirit, he was not born again.

But he could be free from hypocrisy. And that's why God could lead him further and bring him to salvation. Because Nathanael said in verse 49, you're the son of God. He was saved. So I want to say that as an introduction, that if you are free from hypocrisy and you're sincere, that's what God looks for.

Say, Lord, I don't want to take advantage of your grace, but I'm not going to live in condemnation over the past. I believe that the dimes of my ignorance you overlooked, but now you are commanding me to repent, to turn around, or in other words, to turn around and take my life seriously.

Repentance at Every Level of Spiritual Growth

I want to ask you, brothers and sisters, have you had good friends who have come and told you frankly something wrong with you, that you crack some dirty jokes which are not good? Has anyone told you frankly some habit of yours of despising people or whatever it is, which is not good?

Thank God for such friends. Now if you have such, you see things wrong in yourself like that, are you honest enough to acknowledge it and say, yes, Lord, I want to turn from that and anything like that, that either your husband or wife perhaps told you because they love you so much, say, you know, this thing is not really right.

Or you've seen it in yourself. Repent means you want to turn from what you know. You cannot turn from what you don't know is sin in your life. There's a great liberating thing that you don't have to turn from what I see as sin in my life.

Repentance is you turn from what you see as sin in your life. If you're in the first standard, then what you see is wrong at your level. If you're in the eighth standard, what you see is wrong at your level and if you're in the PhD level, then what you see is wrong at your level and it's different levels.

So repentance means different things depending on how much you're mature. If you're a new believer, repentance is very little. Repentance for me is at a very high level because there's subtle things that God shows me which even last year I didn't know were unchristlike.

So at the higher levels of spiritual growth, you're not thinking of sin, which the world calls sin. You're thinking of unchristlike attitudes and unchristlike thought patterns. So, God overlooks our times of ignorance, but he commands us to repent.

To repent of what you know to be wrong in your life. So you turn around. And what do you turn around to do now? Repentance means turning around. Now you turn around to seek for the power of the Holy Spirit, to seek for grace.

The Holy Spirit is called the spirit of grace. See, it's a prophecy in Zechariah chapter 12. In Zechariah chapter 12 and verse 10, it says, I will pour out on the house of David, on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplication.

Supplication means specific request. The spirit that works in me to cry out and ask God for the power of his spirit and fills me with the spirit of grace. He pours out the spirit of grace upon me. He makes me cry out and then fills me.

It's wonderful. He creates in me the longing and then satisfies it. It's wonderful to know that. You know, when God created man, he created man with what we know as hunger and thirst. Imagine if God created hunger and thirst in a man, but there was no food in the world and no water.

That would be torture. But when God created Adam with hunger, he created so many fruits that he could eat in the garden. So what I learned from that is that God who creates a hunger in me has also made provision for satisfying that hunger.

That's what I see in the Garden of Eden right at the beginning of creation. And it's a lesson for us to remember that God created Adam with hunger and provided food to satisfy the hunger. And if God creates a hunger in me, he has already made provision.

Adam doesn't have to go and hunt for where can I satisfy my hunger now. He didn't put Adam in a desert, go search for food. He placed him in a garden. Food was all around him. But God was not going to pluck the fruit and put it into Adam's mouth.

He had to go and take it. And I want to say that to you that if God created you like Adam, created you with a hunger for something more than you have right now spiritually, you can be absolutely sure that he hasn't put you in a desert.

He brought you to CFC and CFC is no desert. He has allowed you to come to a place where you can have plenty of food to satisfy that hunger. But it's not going to be, he's not going to spoon feed you. He's not going to push food down Adam's throat saying, hey, I'm going to satisfy hunger.

No. He creates the hunger, the opportunity to satisfy it is there, but Adam has to reach out and take the food and you have to reach out and say, Lord, I thirst for this life. Life in the Holy Spirit.

The struggling to satisfy my hunger myself is not working. The struggling to prevent sin from having mastery over me is not working. I want to learn the secret of life in the Holy Spirit. Now, this is in many places, you know, the other day we looked at Romans chapter 8, where Paul comes to that place of wretchedness in Romans 7 and says, there are two things he says.

From Romans 7’s Wretchedness to Life in the Spirit

One, Romans 7, 18, I know that nothing good dwells in my flesh. What does he mean by saying nothing good dwells in my flesh? Now, we can think of many aspects of the flesh. There's nothing good dwells in my flesh means all types of dirty thoughts and dirty language and all that.

But that is not what Paul is speaking of here. Sometimes we read one sentence and apply it ourselves. Let's read, like I always say, read slowly, but read in context. Read what comes before and after.

Okay, first of all, Romans 7, 16. First of all, I agree with the law, 16, confessing it is good. I agree that God's standards are the best for me. But in my flesh dwells nothing good, verse 18, not talking about dirty thoughts and bad language.

Here is the thing that's dwelling in his flesh. I wish to live this life, but I can't do it. The wishing is present, but the doing is not. That is what he says is nothing good in my flesh. He's not talking about dirty thoughts.

He's not talking about bad language. This wretched thing that the flesh wants to do something, but can't do it. Again, it wants to do something, but can't do it. Do you understand Romans 7, 18 now? In my flesh, nothing good, meaning I want to do it, but I can't do it.

Paul said that's his first confession. Then he goes on in verse 24 to say, when such a wretched condition that I'm in, how will I be ever delivered? Who will set me free? Who will bring me out of this wretched thing?

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then Romans 8, verse 2, another law, praise the Lord. Another law from the law of Moses, the law of the spirit. The law of Moses is law. The law of the spirit is grace.

This is the difference between law and grace. You go back to Romans 6, 14, sin shall not, promise, not should not, sin shall not rule over you because you're not under the law of Moses, but you're under the law of the spirit now, grace.

And he says the law of the spirit, verse 2, is life in Christ Jesus. The law of the spirit was a written code of commandments. That's the law of Moses. 613 commandments in the Old Testament. We can say that was a tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Murder, evil. Honoring father and mother, good. Adultery, evil. And keeping the Sabbath, good. Taking God's name in vain, evil. Accepting God alone as the true God, good. It was a tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Offering sacrifice for your sin, good. And many other laws, you know, evil. And now we come to grace, which is the tree of life, where Adam could have just reached out and taken that tree of life. This is different.

This is the difference between law of Moses and the law of the spirit. The law of Moses symbolized the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It was a big tree of 613 things you should do or not do. Now we come to the tree of life, which is the life of Christ.

There are no laws here. It's life. And he says this law of the Holy Spirit, contrasted to the law of Moses, the life of Jesus has set me free. That other law could never set me free. I try to keep some commandments, can't keep some, then some I keep, then afterwards I can't keep.

It's an endless life like that. But now the law of life in Christ Jesus has set me free. It's so different. It's so different. You probably heard me, I've used the example of leprosy many times. Because in the Old Testament, leprosy, the whole commandment on leprosy in Leviticus chapter 14, leprosy was a picture of sin in the Old Testament.

Law, Life, and the Illustration of Leprosy

It's one sickness in the Old Testament that is to characterize sin. So there were laws for the lepers in the Old Testament. There were no laws for people who had tuberculosis or cancer, things like that, but leprosy.

Because that was a picture of sin. Because it was very obvious, the result of it in a person. You could see a person, there's a leper. You can't look at a man and say, that's got cancer or he's got tuberculosis.

But leper was obvious. So leprosy is a picture of sin. And you've heard me use this illustration, and I like to use it because it's very relevant to what I'm just saying. What happens to people with leprosy is gradually they lose sensation.

You get a little patch here, and you don't feel anything there. You poke it, you don't feel anything. Sensation is gone. And the thing about leprosy, like sin, is it spreads. It doesn't stay there. It's inside.

It goes into different parts. You know, it's not leprosy that eats away your nose. You don't feel sensation, and because of that gradually you can get injured and all, and you can't do anything about it.

Like you've heard me use the example of the leprosy person who was sleeping at night, in the morning he found one of his toes missing. Because a rat had eaten it. He didn't feel anything. That's how bad lack of sensation can be.

That's why pain is the greatest blessing in the body. Because pain immediately tells you something is wrong. A mosquito is there, or a rat is biting you. Pain is a blessing. If you didn't have pain, you'd lose your legs and all types of things.

And internally, pain is a blessing. It indicates something is wrong. So leprosy person loses that sensation. So when people lose sensation, they can touch a hot plate and burn their hands. They can lose their toes at night and all types of things.

So they have to have a lot of rules. People make rules for people with leprosy. When you see a hot stove, don't touch it. Check whether it's on or not. Check with something else whether it's hot. Laws.

And when you go to bed at night, check your feet if there are any thorns there. How many of us check our feet at night if there are thorns there? Nobody? No need to. You know why? Because you got life in your feet.

That poor leopard doesn't have life in his feet. Because he doesn't have life in his feet, he needs a law, which says check up in case some thorns got into your foot while you were walking this morning.

So he has to check up underneath his feet if there are any thorns there. See the difference between law and life? Law is a struggle. You got to always check. I don't have sensation, so I have to check this, I have to check that, I have to check so many things that I don't hurt myself.

But when you have life, even a mosquito sits somewhere in your body, you feel it immediately. That's the difference between law and life, the tree of law and the tree of life. And you know, Adam, like a fool, tried to live under law, and that is how most human beings live.

And even after being born again. But the law of life in Christ Jesus set me free. But this is not automatic. Because in that day, Adam could just reach to the tree of life and eat it. But today, the Bible says in Genesis 3, that in front of the tree of life, there is a sword.

After Adam sinned, there is a sword going round and round and round in all directions. You can't get there. Before Adam sinned, you could reach out and take it. But after sin, when Adam got this thing which we call the flesh or the self-life, the only way to get to that tree of life is to let the sword fall on our flesh.

If you accept it, you can get to the tree of life. And that's where the Holy Spirit helps us. So we read in Romans 8 .4, now we can say all the requirement of the law can be fulfilled in us. Not should be.

Again, it's not a commandment. It will be. So that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. Who? Here is our part. We do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. So in other words, we are not talking about an automatic life, where you switch on a fan and it keeps running.

You don't have to do anything more. You put on the switch, now it's there. No. You have to take up the cross daily. There's no conflict between taking up the cross daily and life in the Holy Spirit. And this is what we need to understand.

Walking According to the Spirit and Choosing the Cross

Some people think there's a paradox there. I thought it's the work of the spirit and it's not our work. Well, if it were like that, if God did it like that, you know what would happen? We would become like the planets.

Planets don't need to make any choice. I mean, we live 70 -80 years. The planets have obeyed God for thousands of years. Automatic. You'd become a robot. God doesn't want robots. He didn't make Adam a robot that walked up to the tree of knowledge and moved away and walked the other way.

Not like that. But made a deliberate choice. I choose. And God will never make you a robot. And I want to tell you, even in heaven you will not be a robot. I repeat these things because I really am eager that every one of you will come into life in the Holy Spirit.

That's the way God wants you to live. Life under the grace of God. A ministry in the Holy Spirit. This is what God wants. So you see the balance also here in Romans 8 .13. Romans 8 is a wonderful chapter about life in the Spirit.

For example, verse 6. It says how we can find out the mind of the Spirit. When you're finding God's will. How do you know whether your mind is moving in the direction of what your flesh is saying? It will bring a spirit of death in you.

Something that's heavy. But when your mind is set on the Spirit, there's life and peace in your heart. In other words, there's an upsurge of life and peace when you're considering something. When you're considering marrying somebody.

I mean, there can be an upsurge because the flesh says she's a pretty girl or he's a rich man. I'm not talking about that. If you want to know the mind of the Spirit, you have to surrender all those desires and say, Lord, I'll choose anybody you want for me.

And if you walk in the Spirit, the Spirit will give you an upsurge of life and peace. And there's something that all of you who are growing in the Christian life must develop. Because one day God will place you in leadership somewhere.

Or even if you don't come to leadership, if you're a woman, you may become a mother one day. And you'll be a leader of your children. Yeah, even women are leaders of their children. Timothy's mother was Timothy's leader and made him good enough to be an apostle one day.

But, you know, you need as a leader, one of the great needs you have is for discernment. I'll tell you, after 40 years of being an elder, I'm absolutely convinced more than the ability to preach is discernment.

Because if you don't have discernment, you will not be able to gauge people. You will not be able to give responsibility to people. All types of wrong people will get into the church. It's by discernment that we keep people out.

It's by discernment that we appoint elders. It's by discernment that we discipline people. And that discernment comes through when you're walking in the Spirit. The Spirit gives you peace about somebody.

Or a hesitation about someone. Or in marriage, or in considering a job, or in so many situations. Guidance, life in the Holy Spirit, verse 6. And then verse 13. The garbage truck comes and says, Hey, here it is.

It's the same delight that you'll have that your flesh is full of garbage. It did. Thank God I can let the sword go down and cut it off. It's like cutting off something evil. There's a delight in it. If you live according to the flesh, you'll die.

If by the Spirit you're put to death, the deeds of the body, you will live. There's a delight in it. It's not a struggle. You read that and say, Oh boy, put to death the deeds of the body. Think of it as throwing away garbage.

Putting Besetting Sins to Death

Think of it as cutting away something that's ruining your life. There's a beautiful parable I read in one of C .S. Lewis' books. I'm not sure which one it was now, but anyway. Of a man who had a little ugly chameleon.

A chameleon is one of those big lizards. Sitting on his shoulder. It's a picture of the self-life. The angel was there in front of the man. The angel said, Shall I get rid of that chameleon for you? And the chameleon whispers in his ear, No, no, don't let him take me away.

I promise I'll behave in future. I'm sorry for all the things I did bad, but I'll behave in future. He's had this pet for so long that he doesn't want to get rid of it. So he's in two minds. Just like the two minds you have when you're tempted.

Shall I yield to this? Or shall I put it to death? Haven't you had that expression? Shall I put this anger to death? Shall I put this lustful thought to death? Shall I put this desire to watch pornography to death?

Shall I put this desire to be unforgiving or jealous to death? One would think you want to get rid of these terrible things. But somehow there's something in the flesh which says, Hang on, I'll behave myself in future.