The Battle Against Ourselves

Of all the battles we fight in life, some of the most serious are against ourselves. Our weaknesses, our fears, our uncertainties, hopes and dreams that lie so close and yet so far...

Warring Close to Home
The Bible reveals that we are essentially spirit beings (referred to as 'spirit' in my Bible) with a physical body (referred to as 'carnal' or 'flesh'/'fleshly' in some translations), and each has its own mind and nature. The conflict is unrelenting: we know one thing but do another.

Deep down in our hearts, we know the right thing to do, but our appetites and laziness often win the day. For some Christians, this kind of battle does not get easier when they are saved - instead, it can become more intense.

Why? The Bible says that the laws of the Lord are written in the hearts of men, but when we were in bondage to sin, our hearts are dead and are 'dead' to God (in the same concept as the phrase 'dead to the world' - dead people can't respond when they are poked - see Romans chapter 5 to 7). So when we are saved, our hearts are brought from death to life and we become 'alive to righteousness' -- we are more conscious of righteousness versus evil. However, our bodies are very much still alive and is used to having its own way.

Sleepy? We go to sleep. We want to watch that TV show? We'll go watch that TV show. But when our hearts become alive, it doesn't feel right to go to bed without saying goodnight to God -- so we stay up a bit longer but we'll doze off partway through the conversation.

Before we are awakened to true righteousness, we'll let our eyes watch lascivious, downright wicked things and even think them funny. After being awakened to righteousness, our conscience is pricked - but our eyes and minds are used to watching these things and it is hard to pull them away.  Jesus was so accurate when He said, 'The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.' (Matt 26:41)

The Answer

The Bible gives a wonderful command that I've found both difficult but mightily effective in the fight against ourselves:

I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Gal 5: 16-18

Gal 5:17 makes clear that the nature of our flesh has desires that the Spirit dislikes, and vice versa. The word 'law' in that passage specifically refers to the 10 commandments and the laws of Moses. Those laws also stipulate that breaking one of those laws effectively breaks them all. The punishment for sinning against these commandments was death. To me, the law of sin and death, in terms of our everyday lives, is basically the propensity to cycle between the desire to do good, the failure of that (sin), and the consequence of that sin (death).

Walking 'in the flesh' in the context of this passage means to be lead by the desires of the flesh, and to fulfill them.  The Bible goes on to define what the 'works of the flesh' are (ie the products of our fleshly nature):

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like... Gal 5:19-21

Any of those sound familiar to you? At first, it might look archaic but closer scrutiny will reveal that we are surrounded by these things, our TVs are chock full of them.

Fornication is another word for sexual immorality - there's plenty of that on our screens. Jesus said that if a man were to look at a woman to lust after her, it is the same as actually making out with her - he called it adultery (Matt 5:28). Jesus said that hatred is as deserving of judgement as murder (Matt 5:22). Many western countries revel in drunkenness -- it's not a good party unless people get drunk.

We drink it all in, in the name of entertainment, and then it comes out through our language, our attitudes, our actions. Then we wonder why it is so hard to stay out of sin! What would God say about what you are watching?

It has been said that our flesh (bodies) make effective servants, but terrible masters. Fleshly Christians let their bodies' nature and appetites rule them. Spiritual Christians subject that nature and appetite under the rule of their spirits by the Spirit of God.

Walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. It is both a challenge and a promise. Which way will you walk today?