Two Dogs Fighting

Chinese Christian Watchman Nee once wrote, “Being a Christian is like having two dogs fighting inside you.” When asked which one wins, he replied, “The one I feed the most.”

The battle is between the flesh and the Spirit. Galatians 5:16-17 says, “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.”

The flesh wants to veg out in front of the television; the Spirit wants me to pray, preferable while I go for a long walk. The flesh wants to munch all day; the Spirit wants me to “discipline my body and bring it into subjection” (1 Corinthians 9:27). The flesh wants to linger over lunch; the Spirit wants me to get at my responsibilities.

Sometimes the Spirit wants me to sit and rest, or have lunch and take my time. The point is that there is always a conflict. Like a contrary child, whatever God wants, the flesh protests. Every day is a war of choices. At least by this I know that I am spiritually alive!

Those spiritual disciplines that I’ve written about: Bible study, prayer, worship, fellowship, and so on are the means whereby I feed the right “dog.” By diligently doing these things, obedience to the Spirit sometimes is easier, but mostly I am better able to recognize which is which. Without the Scriptures, I could confuse my “I-wants” with those “God-wants” that often seem foolish, or at least contrary to reason.

Prayer fuels my spiritual life. By praying, which is a two-way communication, I learn to discern when God is speaking and when I am merely listening to my sinful self. It also puts my focus on God and His power instead of me and my concerns.

Worship has a similar effect. It is nearly impossible to be fleshy while earnestly praising God. When I am in awe of Him, I cannot think about my I-wants. Instead I want what He wants and His will becomes clearer and makes more sense.

Today, my devotional guide repeats yesterday’s verses from Philippians 2:12-13. “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.”

The author writes of God’s power to change both our mind and our actions. He says, “When God has worked in a man to will . . . then He has made him willing to flee from the wrath to come; willing to be saved by the atoning blood and justifying righteousness of Jesus; willing to be saved by sovereign grace as a sinner undone without hope, and glad to be saved in whatever way God is pleased to save him; willing to pass through the fire, to undergo affliction, and to walk in the strait and narrow path, willing to take up the cross and follow Jesus, willing to bear all the troubles which may come upon him, and all the slanders which may be heaped upon his name; when God has made him willing to be nothing, and to have nothing” then God is also able to work in that person to do, to obey His commands from the heart.

He describes the doing part as “faith to believe, hope whereby he anchors in the finished work of Christ, and love whereby he cleaves to him with purpose of heart” and goes on to say that all this will be with “with fear and trembling, not rushing heedlessly on in daring presumption, not buoyed up by the good opinion of others, not taking up his religion from ministers and books; but by a real genuine work of the Holy Ghost in the conscience.”

This is salvation. It is that amazing power of God to work in my sinful heart so that despite the subtle lies and temptations of the enemy, and the pull and influence of the world, and the demands of my sinful flesh, I can say Yes to Him, even when wanting what He wants and doing what He wants makes very little sense. In the experience of Him changing my will so that I choose the Spirit over the flesh, I am working out, with fear and trembling, what God has worked in.

Then, as my reading today says, I have “got at salvation; at salvation from wrath to come, from the power of sin, from an empty profession.” I am saved “from the flesh, from the delusions of Satan, from the blindness and ignorance” of my own heart. And this is God’s salvation, because God has worked in me to will and to do of His good pleasure—both of which have the power to starve that one “dog” and let the other one win the battle.