On March 4, 1861 Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office to become the 16th President of the United States. At that time, the country was torn over the issue of slavery, and Lincoln wanted this speech to bring the country together and give a vision of hope. He ended it with these famous words:

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

“The better angels of our nature.” What a fascinating phrase. Lincoln didn’t make this phrase up; it had been around since Shakespeare used it in 1599 in a sonnet.  However, Lincoln certainly made it popular using it in this context. What does it mean? He used it as a way to describe the battle inside all of us between our best selves and our worst selves. It conjures up the image, popularized by TV and movies, of an angel sitting on one shoulder and a devil sitting on the other shoulder, each one whispering into a person’s ear tempting him or her to do one thing or another, to say one thing or another, to go one way or another.

While that particular image is not Biblical, the ideas behind it certainly are. We are a fallen people with, as the great Charles Wesley hymn Love Divine, all Loves Excelling says, a “Bent to sinning.” (In the “What We Believe” section of our website there’s a paragraph titled “Sin and Free Will” that explains this from a Biblical perspective). The Apostle Paul puts it like this for us in Romans 7:18-25:

“And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Yes! Amen! Having Jesus Christ as our Lord with the Holy Spirit filling our lives is the only way we can find those “better angels.” Left to our own devices, the “lesser angels” are going to rise to the surface and our sinful nature will win out. Need another picture from Paul? How about his explanation found in Galatians 5:16-26:

“So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses. When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another.”

I don’t know about you, but this is a word I needed to hear this week. I need the Holy Spirit to fill me as I walk with Jesus. I need to surrender my life to Jesus so that my conversations, my thoughts, my actions, my relationships are Jesus-shaped and God-honoring. I need to repent of the many times I thought ill of people with whom I disagree, whether it be politically or theologically or otherwise. Far too often I find myself losing the battle, giving in to my sinful nature. Forgive us, Lord! May you and I follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives so that the world will be changed through us, one “better angel” at a time.