The battle for my mind

“For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.” (2 Corinthians 10:3–6)

These verses are about the Christian war against anything that resists obedience to Christ, including our thoughts. This battle may not be constant, but it is certainly very real.

Chambers’ devotional reading for today puzzled me. He claims that Christian’s spiritual warfare “is not against sin” because Jesus deals with sin in redemption, but it is a “conflict is along the line of turning our natural life into a spiritual life . . . done only by a series of moral choices.”

Yet Scripture says our battle is with Satan’s lies — which are intended to entice my desires and lure me into sin. The sin is in desires that go against the will of God and they are common to human beings.

“But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” (James 1:14–15)

The Bible refers to the natural person as one who does not know God or spiritual realities. This natural person is a sinner. It also refers to the human nature of a Christian using the term “flesh.” While God gives us a new nature in Christ, this ‘flesh; is the source of our struggles. My Greek dictionary says: flesh is the “aspect of human nature which is characterized by or reflects typical human reasoning and desires in contrast with those aspects of human thought and behavior which relate to God and the spiritual life.”

This means I have a human nature that goes against God and a redeemed human nature that does not. One is sinful, the other is of God and needs the Holy Spirit to function.

I’m not sure how Chambers defines ‘the flesh’ but I do know that “in my flesh dwells no good thing” and that I cannot change my natural human nature into a spiritual entity. This is what God does in redemption and it isn’t about me making moral choices.

Now that I am redeemed, that “flesh” or old nature battles my new nature in Christ. To come out on the right side of that war, I need to power of God to fill me with His Spirit and give me the ability to walk with Him in the Spirit as He says in these verses:

“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.” (Galatians 5:16–17)

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.” (Ephesians 6:12–13)

Certainly sin is forgiven and cleansed by the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, yet we are left with that old nature until we die. We are told to put it off, not yield to it, and resist the enemy who tells us lies in his efforts to produce sin from it. As Chambers says, these battles are moral but apart from the Holy Spirit’s power and grace, I will not make ‘moral choices’ but will go down every time. It is God’s weapons for spiritual battles that make victory possible.

Submission to God is important toward victory. God says I must yield to Him and resist the devil. When I do that, the devil flees (James 4:7). He has no power over a person who is submitted to the Lord.

Not only that, worship defeats that old liar. I cannot sin when the Spirit fills me with awe and wonder at the person and power of God.

I was puzzled at Chambers saying our “conflict is along the line of turning our natural life into a spiritual life” because this makes no sense. If the natural life is not sinful, why does it need to be changed? Jesus lived a perfect natural life, but He did not sin. The rest of us do sin and that makes us susceptible to the attacks of our enemy. He knows how to get at us, and if he cannot make our actions outright sinful, he will lure us into doing ‘good’ things for sinful reasons.

Again, to win every battle, I need the power of God, not only to make the right choices, but to recognize that I am even fighting those battles.

Contrasts and Unity

When my characteristics are compared, anything that might be perceived as light and good (and from God) has a dark contrast in my sinful nature. That is, if God gives me wisdom, it is because I am so foolish. If God gives me the ability to love someone, it is because I am so selfish. If God gives me compassion, it is because I do not care about the feelings of others.
 

However, in Jesus Christ, the compared characteristics are all good. He is all things without any sin. He is the only one who can be both a Lion and a Lamb.

And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered”…. and I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain…. (Revelation 5:5–6)

When I pray, I am bowing before One who is transcendent, not at all an equal, but when Jesus prays He takes the postures of reverence, He “knelt down and prayed” (Luke 22:41) but at the same time is fully God and in every way equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit.

… though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. (Philippians 2:6–7) 

Jesus is also perfectly innocent and worthy of all praise. He deserved nothing from God because of any guilt of His own, and He deserves no evil treatment from us, yet in perfect patience He submitted to the greatest suffering that any man could experience. He “endured the cross, scorning its shame” (Hebrews 12:2) willingly accepting the cup of God’s wrath poured out, not for anything He had done but for our sin.

This magnifies His innocence and His patience, just as the Bible says,

For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. (1 Peter 2:20–24)

My contrasting characteristics from God and from my sinful nature must be confusing to those who experience them, but for people who experience Jesus, His characteristics all belong to one perfect Person, equal and fully God yet totally submissive to God, sinless yet willingly going to the Cross to suffer for my sin. This produces worship in my heart. I cannot fully understand or explain this God-man, but know in the core of my being that He is real and alive. Jesus Christ is God the Son who became a man totally without sin yet took upon Himself the sin of the world, my sin included. For this, my lowly heart is lifted in praise.

Two Roots

I have a split personality. Not in the clinical, psychological sense though. A shrink would never diagnose me so, but the Scriptures do. According to God, and in line with my experience, there is the life of a sinful nature, and the life of Christ living in me. Two natures.

One of them is supposed to be dead, but not dead like a critter run flat by a car. In the Bible, dead means separation, and in this case, separation from God. That old sinful nature cannot respond in a positive way to God or trust Him. Instead, it resists all things spiritual, all things right and true. It is dead.

The other life, that of Christ, is responsible for all things good and godly. I cannot claim them apart from acknowledging their source. Apart from Him, I cannot do anything that pleases God. It is Jesus in me that accounts for any goodness, any obedience to the Lord.

It’s not that the old nature isn’t capable of doing things that look good, it’s just that behind every such action is some sort of self-serving motivation. I either want to defend or protect myself, promote myself, or look good, or feel good, or make people think I am good.

It seems logical that someone with two natures would pick the best one to live by. After all, having the Son of God in charge of your life sounds absolutely wonderful. Such grace, such power. I could do all things, be the most irresistible person, heal the sick, move mountains. Why not let Him have total control of my life? It makes sense.

All that reasoning comes from the old nature, because the truth is, living under the control of Christ means I have no control over what He does with me. I can say ‘no’ to it, but I cannot tell Him what comes next. Instead, I have to trust Him and do what He says, without any of my grand and self-serving ideas popping in to shape my words and actions.

Galatians 2:20 says, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

I get an odd picture of a tree with two root systems. One goes down into a mud puddle, the other goes into living water. The branches come up out of those two root systems and intertwine at the top, making one tree—me. Sometimes an observer cannot tell which branch comes from which root, but God can. He knows the part that is dead to Him, and the part that is Christ living in me. And He knows how to make one sit down and shut up and the other get to work.

The key word in that verse is faith. It is something like the recruit who hands his life over to his commander officer to be trained and serve in the armed forces. His life is no longer his own. It is something like a servant who gives himself totally to his master. His life is no longer his own. The recruit and the servant may or may not trust the one in authority over them though, and have other reasons for obeying.

Not so with those who have Christ living in them. I must obey because I trust Him. I have no idea what He is going to ask me to do, no idea what will happen next under His control and direction, and certainly no idea of the outcome. I cannot control any of that. It is His decision and under His will.

It seems illogical to have doubts about the will and power of God. He has proven His power and goodness. Why not trust Him? Why not let Him run things? (Truth be known, He does anyway.)

After examining my own heart, and listening to a zillion excuses made by those who don’t, I’ve concluded doubt and resistance isn’t about trust. It is a control thing, a decision about power. The Jews in Jesus day said, “We will not have this man rule over us” and that is the crux of the matter, both for them and for me.

The Bible also says that “it is God who works in you both to will and to do His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). He is able to make me willing when my old nature jumps in to resist Him. He is able to produce in me the ability to carry out His commands. He is able to make that confusing and intertwining tree produce the fruit of the Spirit.

Apart from Him, I could not and would not. So today I am celebrating the reality of Jesus in my life. These past couple weeks side-swiped our family, yet He has and is taking care of us, and His presence keeps the wind of change and the storms of uncertainty from blowing that odd tree over.

Actually, the storm seems to blow just enough to pull and loosen one of the root systems and deepen and strengthen the other. He does know what He is doing.