For when we were living in accordance with our lower nature, the sinful passions that were aroused by the law were operating in the parts of our bodies to make us bear fruit that leads to death.

For I know that nothing good has its home in me; that is, in my lower self; I have the will but not the power to do what is right.

but I see another power operating in my lower nature in conflict with the power operated by my reason, which makes me a prisoner to the power of sin which is operating in my lower nature.

Wretched man that I am! Who can save me from this deadly lower nature?

Thank God! It has been done through Jesus Christ our Lord! So in my higher nature I am a slave to the law of God, but in my lower nature, to the law of sin.

For though the law could not do it, because it was made helpless through our lower nature, yet God, by sending His own Son in a body similar to that of our lower nature, and as a sacrifice for sin, passed sentence upon sin through His body,

so that the requirement of the law might be fully met in us who do not live by the standard set by our lower nature, but by the standard set by the Spirit.

For people who live by the standard set by their lower nature are usually thinking the things suggested by that nature, and people who live by the standard set by the Spirit are usually thinking the things suggested by the Spirit.

For to be thinking the things suggested by the lower nature means death, but to be thinking the things suggested by the Spirit means life and peace.

Because one's thinking the things suggested by the lower nature means enmity to God, for it does not subject itself to God's law, nor indeed can it.

The people who live on the plane of the lower nature cannot please God.

But you are not living on the plane of the lower nature, but on the spiritual plane, if the Spirit of God has His home within you. Unless a man has the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.

So, brothers, we are under obligations, but not to our lower nature to live by the standard set by it;

for if you live by such a standard, you are going to die, but if by the Spirit you put a stop to the doings of your lower nature, you will live.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither the lower ranks of evil angels nor the higher, neither things present nor things future, nor the forces of nature,

Be of like affection one towards another. Be not high minded, but make yourselves equal to them of the lower sort. Be not wise in your own opinions.

Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and put a stop to gratifying the evil desires that lurk in your lower nature.