The Nature of Our Battle
I was sitting with Scarlet today, who is 5 months pregnant with our first child. I have had many emotions over the last 5 months, along with my bride. Each month we read up on what to expect at each phase of pregnancy. Weird things happen to a woman when she?s with child. Once, while we sat together today, she looked at me and tried to communicate on the most simple of matters but her words uncharacteristically fumbled around inside her mouth. Giving up, she said, ?Oh forget it. If you wanna know what?s going on, just read chapter five in that pregnancy book over there.?
I?m glad that we have a Book that helps us to understand why we do the things we do in life, because sometimes we humans make little sense. The Bible, our manual for belief and practice, tells us why sometimes we don?t do the things we want to do and yet often do the very things we hate. I?m probably already striking a cord with you to some degree because we all have that in common. We all desire to please God yet often find ourselves shaking our head wondering why did we just did or said what we just did or said. Been there? Done that? What?s the problem? In Romans chapter seven, the Apostle Paul names the culprit. He calls it the ?flesh? (Rom. 7:18). The flesh is the old ways that we used to try to get our needs met apart from the Lord. Its how a person thinks and acts minus God.
We all are born with needs for love, acceptance and a sense of significance. Apart from the Lord we develop our own unique way of getting those needs met. Our sin nature dictated that we look to ourselves to get the job done rather than to the Lord. Maybe manipulating, intimidating or humiliating others did the trick for you. Perhaps avoiding conflict and going along to get along was your way. Maybe your flesh worked out on perfectionism; you always had to do it better than everyone else or the world fell apart. Perhaps you figured the more money you had, the more secure you would be, so your flesh found ways to always make a buck. In whatever manner you strove to meet your own needs outside of the Lord, blatant or subtle, those ways trained your brain and became ingrained. They became your fleshly tendencies, maybe even strongholds.
But when you gave your life to the Lord and got saved, things changed. Your spirit, though once dead, became alive. The real you was born again, but this time by the Spirit of God. You became a new creature in Christ and old things passed away (2 Cor. 5:17). You died and were freed from sin (Romans 6:6-7). Praise the Lord! Since becoming a Christian, you are not who you used to be!
?Then why do I still tend to do some of the things I used to do?? you ask. The Bible says the problem is sin in your flesh. Aha! Another culprit besides the flesh! What is this, a conspiracy? You might say that. Follow me here. Before Jesus saved you, you were a child of the Devil and he controlled your life through sin, flesh, and the world (Eph. 2:1-3). At salvation, Satan lost control. However, he didn?t give up on you. He still wants to control your life. And there?s only one way he can do it: through your flesh.
Now, I?m not saying here, as many would, that we have two natures, a new one and an old one still alive. Nowhere does the Bible say we have two natures. You are a believer with a new nature that loves God and desires to please Him but you still have an unsaved body of flesh that has sin?s appeal still within it. All this is straight out of Romans 7:14-25.
?Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. . . For I delight I the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members [body], warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. Oh, wretched man that I am!?
The term ?wretched? literally means ?miserable.? Paul describes this part of his life as miserable. And we know about that, don?t we. We know the misery of having a renewed inward nature that longs to do right while struggling against the sinful tendencies of our flesh. But that is the nature of Satan?s control. He seeks to control us by tempting us to sin by trying to meet a need apart from God according to the flesh, according to the old ways of pre-conversion life. That?s when we find ourselves doing what we don?t want to do.
That?s where Romans 8 comes in. We must then set our minds on the Spirit and not on the desires of the flesh. Setting your mind is the key. Colossians 3:2, 3 commands us, ?Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.? (NASB) So then, our responsibility in the face of temptation (Satan appealing to the weaknesses of the flesh to sin) is to set our minds on truth; specifically, the truth about who we are in Christ. The focus is not to be aiming at stopping the sin and the struggle as much as aiming at claiming and believing the truth about who we are in Christ. Satan?s greatest power being deceit, truth is our greatest weapon against him. Know the truth and the truth will set you free (John 8:32).
Know who you are in Christ: a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17); strong in the Lord (Eph. 6:10); delivered from the power of darkness (Col. 1:13); a saint (Rom. 1:7); victorious (Rev 21:7); established to the end (1 Cor. 1:8); raised up with Christ and seated in heavenly places (Col. 2:12); more than a conqueror (Rom. 8:37); complete in Christ (Col. 2:10); free from condemnation (Rom. 8:1); a priest to serve God (Rev. 1:6); sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:3); alive with Christ (Eph. 2:5); a beloved child of God (Eph. 5:1); all your needs are met by the Lord (Phil. 4:19); dead to sin and alive to Christ (Rom. 6:2,11)! Hallelujah! This is who we are! The more we believe it, the more we will live like it, because we live like we live because we believe what we believe.
Dear friend, who you are is no longer defined by what you do; who you are is defined by who God says you are. Period. Regardless of how you feel. Satan would love for you to believe that who you are is defined by what you do so that his accusations can take on more force. But it?s not true. You are who God says you are; you?re not a dirty, rotten sinner, you?re a saint who occasionally sins. That?s Bible. Set your mind on that continually, and the old ways begin to lose steam. Satan then has little to work with in your life and Christ will be freed to live out His life through you. That?s revival!
