Fighting the Flesh

By Michael K. Farrar, O.D.

© God’s Breath Publications

 

Galatians 5:16-18

“So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.”

 

It is guaranteed that you will daily have a battle with your flesh nature. It doesn’t matter how much you think you have it together spiritually. It’s inevitable that the flesh will rear its ugly head in some area of your life and challenge you to a duel. The reason we face this struggle so much is obvious, our flesh is still present in our mortal bodies. Those of us who have chosen to serve our risen Savior Jesus Christ at least have a fighting chance for victory over the pull of the flesh. When we gave our lives to Jesus and became His possession we were given the Holy Spirit to empower us to have victory over our sinful flesh. We might think it would have been nice for God to purge us of all vestiges of our sinful flesh when we became a Christian, but God wishes for us to live with this uncomfortable bedfellow during our lives here on earth. It’s very likely the reason is so that we can build our faith and strengthen our dedication through the struggles we have with our fleshly nature. Those who have no relationship with Jesus Christ are at the mercy of both their sinful nature and the prince of the power of the air, Satan. They only have human means of resisting their flesh and this is of no practical use at all to battle the temptations it presents. Ephesians 2 1-10 discusses this former life and how different it is from living the Spirit-directed life focused on serving Christ.

 

Numerous scriptures command us to die to sin and no longer serve the desires of our flesh. One such passage is Romans 6:11-14, which states;

 

“In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.”

 

This passage is interesting because it gives several ideas of how to handle sin and fleshly desires. It suggests we consider ourselves “dead to sin.” Another way to put this would be to say that when it comes to sin, we should be numb and disinterested. It’s almost like if sin or the flesh walked up to us as a person we would ignore them completely and absolutely. We would not make eye contact with them. We would not speak to them. We would in a sense, shun them.

 

Another suggestion in this passage is that we do not allow sin to reign in our body. This confronts us with the fact that when we sin, we choose to place our flesh on the throne of our life. We therefore remove Christ from this throne and put Mr. or Mrs. Flesh in His place.

 

One pastor I have heard speak says, “Every sin is an inside job.” What he means by this is we can’t blame someone else for the sin that is present in our life. We are the only ones to blame. This passage tells us that we have a choice to not let sin reign in our life. If we do choose to let it reign then very likely we will be following and obeying its evil desires. In a sense, when we let sin into our lives the tail wags the dog, the tail being the sinful nature. This scripture passage gives us hope. We have a choice in fighting our flesh. We can choose victory over it by not responding to it and by not allowing it to reign in us. We do this because we live under God’s grace and we are able to choose the right path because we can rely upon the power of the Spirit who lives within us.

 

Another passage of scripture that has similar encouragement for us Christians is Colossians 3:5-11. It states:

 

“Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.”

 

Again in this passage the idea of “killing” the flesh is presented. It’s almost like this passage is suggesting we take our fleshly nature out into an abandoned field and slaughter it. Why? Because God knows that within the fleshly nature lies death incarnate. We know from Romans 6:23 that the wages of sin is death. Sin comes from the flesh fulfilling its desires. So therefore if we don’t put to death the fleshly nature, we will be put to death.

 

Another portion of this passage is also very interesting. It tells us that when we live our lives as servants of Christ we take off our old self and have put on a new self. This describes the process of submitting to the power of God and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. This scriptural analogy illustrates that as we remove the fleshly nature in our obedience to God we are in a sense removing an old set of clothes and replacing it with a new set of clothing pure and white made by our Heavenly Father.

 

The last part of this passage gives us hope as we struggle in the process of this changing of spiritual clothing. It states that we are being renewed in knowledge in the image of our Creator. This implies that this change that takes place in our lives is a process. It doesn’t take place overnight but is gradual and progressive. As we respond to God’s Word, obeying what it says and listen to the guidance from the Holy Spirit, living according to what He says we can rest assured that we will have victory over the flesh.

 

One last passage we might consider for help in fighting our flesh concerns the situation when our Savior faced temptations or testings of the flesh. While Jesus Christ did not possess any degree of original sin and was pure and holy from the day of His birth, He did face the natural temptations we all face having a body of flesh that had normal cravings and desires. In Matthew 4 we find the situation of His testing in the wilderness. He had fasted for forty days and nights so being in a physically weakened state He was approached by Satan and tempted. We see from this situation that Satan will often come to us when we are weak and tired, either physically, emotionally or spiritually to take advantage of us. Often in such situations He will appeal to our flesh to fulfill its desires. In this situation Satan approaches the famished and hungry Jesus and says, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Very likely in this area of the desert wilderness there were small round stones that resembled small loaves of bread. We know Jesus must have been very hungry. We know Jesus had the power to follow such a suggestion. But Jesus responds in a manner that reflects His dedication to His Heavenly Father, commitment to His ministry and knowledge of scripture. He responds to Satan’s suggestion by saying, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

 

This illustrates a very important and crucial point when it comes to fighting our flesh. We must know God’s Word and we must act on what it says. We do this because we love our Lord and are dedicated to obeying Him. Our obedience comes from the intimate relationship we have developed with Him over time. Yes, we may be weak. Yes, we may have fleshly desires. Yes, we may struggle with doing what is right. BUT, if we listen to scripture, do what it says, die to sin, kill our fleshly nature we will feed on the Living Word, the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ our Savior and have victory over the flesh.

 

1 John 5:3-5

“This is love for God: to obey His commands. And His commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”

 

Romans 8:5-11

“Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.”