Jenny was a little girl who lived on a farm. Her mother had given her a hen and some eggs to be hatched. Jenny looked forward to the time when she would have some little chicks all her own.
But these eggs were not all the same size: seven of them were hen’s eggs and six were duck’s eggs. For many days the little mother hen patiently sat on the nest. After about three weeks, two different groups of yellow, fluffy, baby birds hatched. Jenny was so excited and decided to make a house for the new family.
One morning a few weeks later when she went to the chicken house to feed them, she discovered that all of the young ducklings were gone and only the young chickens were left. She ran and told her mother the sad news.
Her mother laughed and said, “Jenny, go down to the pond in the field and see if you can find them there.”
So Jenny hurried off to the pond. Sure enough, there were the six little ducks having a wonderful time enjoying their first swim in the water. She tried to get them to come back to the shore, but no, they loved the water and were having too good a time to leave. It was just as natural for them to be in the water as it was for the chicks to be on the land. Even though both the ducks and chicks were hatched in the same nest, the two groups had different natures.
Jenny’s mother saw a little lesson in this. She explained to Jenny that we all are born with a nature that is selfish, wants to sin, loves the world and its pleasures, and is against God. But when a person becomes saved, he is “born again,” born of God. He receives a new nature that is holy, that cannot sin, and that loves to obey and please the Lord Jesus. However, that other, old nature still stays in the Christian as long as he is alive. A Christian is to keep that old nature in the place of death with the help and power of Christ. But sometimes a Christian lets it become very active.
The old nature can only sin; the new nature cannot sin. May the Lord Jesus help each of us who is saved from our sins to walk in the power of that new nature.
ML-06/08/1997