Two Natures
Ruthie was a little girl who lived on a large farm. Her mother had given her a hen and a setting of eggs. Ruthie looked forward to the time when she would have a brood of little chicks all her own.
But these eggs were not all of the same size, for seven of them were hen’s eggs and six were duck eggs. For days the little mother hen patiently sat on the nest. Then sure enough at the appointed time, two distinct broods of little yellow downy things made their appearance. Ruthie clapped her hands with delight and set about to make a house for the new family.
One morning a few weeks later, when she went on her regular visit to the chicken house, to her sorrow she found that all of the young ducklings were gone, and only the chickens were left. In dismay she ran and told her mother the sad news. Mother laughed, and said to her little girl, “You go down to the pond in the meadow and look; perhaps you may find them there.” So Ruthie hurried off to the pond, and to her great delight, sure enough there were six little ducks having a wonderful time sailing about, enjoying their first swim on the water. She tried her utmost to persuade them to come back to the shore, but no, they were too much at home on the water and having too good a time to leave. It was just as natural for them to be on the water as it was for the chicks to be on the land. Although both were hatched in the same nest, the two broods had different natures.
Mother used this little incident to teach Ruthie that day a lesson she never forgot, and I hope our young readers may learn it too. It is this: we all were born with a nature that is self-willed, loves sin, loves the world and its pleasures, and is enmity against God. But when one gets saved, he is “born again,” born of God; he receives a new nature that loves only holiness, righteousness, and finds its delight in obeying and pleasing the Lord Jesus. However, the old nature still remains in the Christian, and will do so as long as he is in this body. The believer is called on to keep this old nature in the place of death, through the power of the death of Christ, though sad to say we let him become very active at times.
The old nature can only sin; the new nature cannot sin. May the Lord help each of us who are saved, to walk in the power of that new life, so that Christ might shine forth in us.
ML 04/04/1965