It does not get easier

“That was my evil twin,” she explained. Other people would call it by different names, but when a normally pleasant person does something mean or unkind, the Bible calls this the action of our sinful flesh.

This term “flesh” is used in the New Testament to describe the sinful nature that is in the human heart, a dead thing (dead in the sense of being separated from God) that still tries to rule my life and the lives of all who believe. We are in good company; the apostle Paul fought the same battle.

For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. (Romans 7:22-25)

Sometimes Christians say this is a battle between the head and the heart. This assumes that what I think in my mind is the bad side and what I feel in my heart is from God, but Paul does not use those terms. He says that the mind is included in my new nature; the flesh is something else, a deeper thing than mere thoughts.

The best I can come up with is that the flesh is more about motivation. Am I doing this for me, to glorify and indulge me, or am I doing it at God’s bidding? Am I motivated by whatever looks good, feels good, strokes my pride, or am I motivated by the Holy Spirit?

Whatever the correct terms, Christians are in a battle. I am called to obey God and my new nature wants to do that, but the flesh has other ideas. As Paul said, thank God for Jesus Christ and for the Holy Spirit who is there to enable me to do the will of God.

Yet Paul does not sugar-coat this battle. He says in verse 23, “I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind.” He calls it correctly; this internal struggle is a war.

On one side is the sin principle, which is part of the human condition. Every Christian fights with it and knows the war between sinful desires and the other side, our new creation that delights in the law of God. Some say that the longer we fight the battle, the easier it will be to win. That may be true, but for me, yielding to the Holy Spirit seems to make the flesh more cunning and the temptations more subtle.

Paul offers advice about this war in many passages of the New Testament. The one that helps me the most is this:

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. (Galatians 5:16-18)

From it, I am aware of two things. One is that this conflict will happen. If there is no conflict, I would have to doubt that I am a Christian and wonder if I’ve given in to the flesh and not realized it.

The other is that the Holy Spirit frees me from trying to win this by adhering to laws and rules. Do this and don’t do that are not the way to win. Such weapons are from the flesh and making such choices are governed by my “I wants” and not the Holy Spirit.

Instead, I win when I follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes His leading seems rational and clearly the best choice, but more often than not the flesh conflicts by arguing that God’s way cannot be the best, that my ideas are good, that doing what I want would produce more pleasing results, blah, blah, blah.

No, it really doesn’t get easier to win. Jesus fought and won for thirty-three years or so, yet in His last battle He sweat drops of blood as He resisted and said, “Not my will, but thine be done.”

But the battles are shorter. And when the Spirit wins and the flesh loses, the spoils are sweeter. I am more able to keep looking at Jesus. Remembering what He has done builds my desire to yield to the Spirit. As Paul said, I thank God for because He makes listening to the flesh less and less appealing.