When we first come to the know Christ and turn our lives over to Him, we naively expect that following after God and doing good will be easy. To our great consternation, we find out that some dark desires still lurk within us. We are shocked to find out that our mind and body are still drawn to the pleasures we enjoyed before we met Christ. This is lure of the dark side and the beginning of the great struggle within the child of God.
Just like the Jedi, every child of God must constantly keep his life in check lest he fall to the dark side. The dark side of self is sweet and alluring, and many have been deceived by it.
The Fight Within
The scripture warns of a struggle in the believer,
The Spirit and your desires are enemies of each other. They are always fighting each other and keeping you from doing what you feel you should – Gal 5:17 (CEV)
This is a great struggle which has left many christians in doubt of their salvation. Many have wept and cried, fasted and prayed, only to find out that there desires are still within them. Unfortunately for the child of God, yeilding to these desire is not an option,
My dear friends, we must not live to satisfy our desires. If you do, you will die. But you will live, if by the help of God’s Spirit you say “No” to your desires – Rom 8:12-12 (CEV)
Any christian who consistently indulges his flesh will die, not a natural death, but one within, a seperation from God. So how do we handle this “dark side?” How do we overcome the self?
WrestleMania! – Overcoming The Flesh
The bible gives us one tip to overcome the flesh – walk in the spirit.
I say be guided by the Spirit and you won’t carry out your selfish desires. – Gal 5:16 (CEV)
So what does it mean to “walk” in the spirit? How do we live our lives “in the spirit?” Walking in the spirit means living your lives from the spiritual perspective. It means understanding that you are essentially a spiritual being. When your perspective changes, you will begin to see things in new light.
Now, one of the things you will realise is that you are in a kind of wrestling match and your opponent is the flesh. You will see that winning the flesh can be traced down to basic tactics that we see in sports every day. Some of these are:
1. Build your “body”. A well-built and well fed body gives great stamina. Hunger makes one weak and a weak person cannot fight well. Unfortunately, most Christians don’t know that their spirit needs to feed. Their spirits go through day after day on an empty stomach and yet they expect to win the flesh whom they indulge three times a day.
Be like newborn babies who are thirsty for the pure spiritual milk that will help you grow and be saved. – 1 Peter 2:2
In fact, for some people, the only time their spirits feed is on Sunday mornings. By the following Sunday, their spirit is tired and exhausted and has received good thrashing during the week. This should not be. Read the bible daily to keep your spirit in good shape.
2. Train well. Training gives you an advantage and constant training makes you an irresistible force. Your spirit must be well trained and this takes place during prayer. How often do you spend time in prayer?
3. Have tag teams. At times, when the fight is tough, you might need a partner or partners to help you. These are people that can assist you in your fight. You should have around you people of like minds, people who are also disciples of Christ. It is a huge advantage in the fight against the flesh. Remember, the flesh also has tag teams too. Beware of these. If you have problem with a particular sin and you still keep around you people who indulge in this sin, you are setting up yourself for defeat.
4. Increase your advantage. In most fighting contest, opponents try to intimidate each other to create a winning advantage. You need to give your spirit an advantage by making the flesh weak and you do this when you fast. Fasting need not only be in food, it should include all other things that feed the flesh. No wonder Job made this decision:
I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman – Job 31:1
Job realized he will be giving his spirit an advantage over lust by keeping his eyes.
Conclusion
If you have been losing your struggle with the flesh before now, do not despair yet. If you are not with God, there won’t be any struggle in the first instance. You feel this way because you are a child of God and His Spirit still lives in you. What you need to do now is to change tactics. Now is the time to pick up your kit and get into the spiritual gym to put your spirit in shape. 😉
