The Vital Divine Habit

Galatians 5:16   So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves.  17  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.

Wuest:  But I say, through the instrumentality of the Spirit habitually order your manner of life, and you will in no wise execute the passionate desire of the flesh,   17  for the flesh constantly has a strong desire to suppress the Spirit, and the Spirit constantly has a strong desire to suppress the flesh.  And these are entrenched in an attitude of mutual opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you desire to do.


I like how Wuest fills this out.

• We are to make it our habit of letting the Holy Spirit guide our lives.
• These desires of the sinful nature or flesh are passionate.
• the sinful nature needs suppression since the desires are so passionate.  What can suppress the sinful nature, only Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit, not modern psychology, not our own will, not guilt or condemnation, not good intentions.
  

Don't Allow Sin to be King

Romans 8:12 relates well with Galatians 5

The words in verse 12, "let not sin reign," are in a construction in the Greek which forbids the continuation of an action already going on. The word "reign" is in the Greek "reign as king." The tense speaks of habitual action. "That you should obey" is literally, "with a view to habitually obeying." The word "lusts" is literally "cravings." "Therefore" does not go back to "sin" but to "body." . . . "Lusts therefore" refers to the cravings of the human body, which cravings come from the sinful nature. The translation reads, "Therefore, stop allowing sin to reign habitually as king in your mortal bodies, with a view to your habitually obeying the cravings of that body." God is never unreasonable in His demands upon His own. What He asks of us is always within our ability to fulfill as we appropriate the divine resources of grace. Since the power to sin is broken and the divine nature is implanted, we are well able to keep sin from reigning in our bodies

(Treasures from the Greek New Testament, pp. 96-98).

The Old Identity

Galatians 5:13
For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.

Sinful nature is how NLT describes the greek word sarkos.  KJV uses "works of the flesh", Barclay uses "the lower side of human nature", Amplified has "doings (practices) of the flesh", Phillips "activities of the lower nature", and Wuest "actions of the evil nature".