These thoughts are centered around Romans 10:13 "If you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live". To better understand the context, check out Romans 10:5-17. 

By the Spirit—this is how we put to death the misdeeds of the body. It is not through the will, or through human effort of any kind that we can ever hope to put to death these misdeeds. This is the central attempt of legalism: to control the flesh in or by the flesh. We imagine if we have a problem with lust, then we must somehow stop lusting. But this will never work; no aspect of our flesh- not our strength, not our will, not our emotions, not our intellect- none of these possess the capacity to put to death the misdeeds of the body. Only by the Spirit of God can we put an end to these things. And we must do this; we are commanded to. We are not to allow sin to reign in our mortal bodies; we are not to keep those hidden lusts, and easy sins, and pet evils within us. [Rom. 6:12]
      We have been called to holiness. And this holiness is attainable only through the power of the Holy Spirit. When we are convicted of sin, when we know of something in us that is not pleasing to God, we must take this to God in prayer. We first should repent, and then we must pray for the triumph of the Spirit. We need to pray for God’s way in our lives, and for the death of this sinful area in our lives. It is the Holy Spirit who produces His fruit in us; we cannot produce love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self-control on our own. Neither can we on our own put to death the sinful ways that come so naturally to us; the work must be done in cooperation with God’s Holy Spirit. We must relinquish our friendship with that sin, and willingly and actively take it to the Holy Spirit to seek His force and action to crush it beneath our feet. We need to remember that big "S" Sin has already been destroyed by Christ on the cross, and with it, our sinful natures. So we must live accordingly, and live by the Spirit!