Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak.(Matthew 26:41)
This was Jesus admonishing Peter, James, and John in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus was under great stress, and was going away to pray to the Father before His crucifixion on the cross of Calvary. He knew that the disciples were also about to go through a trying time. The Lord realized that they were tired and that Satan attacks most often when we are weak physically, emotionally, or spiritually. He also knew that prayer is the way to combat the temptations.
This simple statement, the spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak reveals a profound truth. Christ knew that trying to control our flesh was practically useless against our temptations; and our will power can only hold out for so long. These things may manifest in the physical, but they are spiritual battles, and we must fight spiritual battles with spiritual means. You must wage spiritual war with spiritual weapons. Unless we are alive to the Spirit, we are no match for our own selves. Is it any wonder why unbelievers seem to fall into the most egregious sins even when they really don’t want to?
For Christians it should be a different story. We can still be controlled by fleshly desires, but we have the power of the Holy Spirit, which gives us a real choice to do God’s will. God’s people are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit (Romans 8:5-9). However, even though we are not “in the flesh” as Christians, we still have to deal with our flesh (Romans 7:18-23). When we are following the desires of our natural bodies, like reaching for that drink as a recovering addict, the flesh is controlling us. When we allow ourselves to be controlled by our senses, rather than the Word of God, we are “walking after the flesh”, and not walking in the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-17).
One of the most important facets of the sanctification of believers has to do with relying on the Holy Spirit to mortify the deeds of the body (Romans 8:13). This is accomplished by renewing our minds (Romans 12:1 / Ephesians 4:23), which is taking control of the soul, and putting our bodies under subjection (1 Corinthians 9:27), which is crucifying the flesh and its passions (Galatians 5:24). We must continually realize that our old man was crucified with Christ (Romans 6:6), and we must put on the new man (Ephesians 4:24 / Colossians 3:10). This is why we must keep being filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), which is being controlled by the Spirit in the sense that we are following His lead as dictated in the Word of God.
10 comments:
Feed the "want to"...
When we allow ourselves to be controlled by our senses, rather than the word of God, we are “walking after the flesh”, and not walking in the Spirit
Agreed. Now forgive me up front, because I love this topic, and can't help but to elaborate a bit...
You have heard the example before, but I mention it for context... The little girl who is told to sit down but refuses to do so until she is threatened with a spanking - who then sits and declares with a bold face that while she is sitting with her body, she is still "standing in her heart!" - that little episode perfectly pictures an external obedience to a form - the kind of obedience the Pharisees were good at. The kind of conforming to God's word that only cleanses the outside of the cup, but leaves the inside untouched.
There is a way to "be controlled by the word of God" that is entirely external, entirely ascetic, entirely carnal. It is a sort of unsurrendered obedience driven by motives other than love - and usually, if we go down the rabbit hole deep enough, we find the culprit is actually a confused sort of "self-preservation." This is typically brought about because the one who is "obeying" is actually obeying because, rather than surrender all to God (which is what the Spirit within them is calling them to do), they instead pacify their conscience by obeying the form without surrendering anything in their heart - not unlike a man who threads water instead of actually swimming... and they continue to thread water this way because deep down inside they are not willing to surrender (and they know it) so they think they can satisfy God if they at least conform to an outward obedience - they are really afraid of God, and afraid of the what disobedience might mean - so they obey because doing so gives them a confused "assurance" about the validity of their faith. Not that their faith is validated by their obedience, but rather that they think if they don't obey it demonstrates that they aren't saved - so no matter what their theological understanding happens to be - in practice they feel that God really and truly only accepts them when they obey - and for some, they even feel deep down, regardless of their theology, that if they ever stop obeying it will prove that they aren't real Christians. (oh how our enemy likes to take a crowbar to every little crack in our armor!)
So when we place "being controlled by our senses" in diametric opposition to "being controlled by the word of God" and say that doing the one is walking in the flesh and not the spirit, we may be implying that simply denying our self and obeying the word of God is --how-- to walk in the Spirit, when in actual fact it only gives enough information to describe how to be an obedient Jew (stop doing bad, start doing good - and it would be a mistake to equate [an external] obedience with walking in the Spirit.
We do not imply by this that the correlation between Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 is invalid. In the one (Eph 5:18) we are told to be filled with the Spirit and in the other (Col 3:16) to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly, and the remainder of those chapters records a list of near identical outcomes - that is, there we see a correlation between walking in the Spirit and letting the word of Christ dwell in us richly. That teaches us that walking in the Spirit is in some way equivalent or parallel with letting the word of Christ dwell in us richly. But what we may errantly try to do is to try to generate the "walking in the Spirit" -by- simply obeying the word of Christ. But recall the little girl? She obeyed the command, but she did -not- allow that command to -dwell- in her richly, no, she kept her heart aloof from it. The point here is that there is a way to conform to the word of God without letting it -dwell- in us, so we must be careful when we line the two ideas beside one another, for we stand in danger of equating simply obeying the word of Christ with actually walking in the Spirit.
It is a subtlety to be sure, and I am certainly making more of this than your text warrants - yet it is one of those things that is near to my heart - so many fall into a Christianity wherein the Holy Spirit has been replaced by their own ventriloquist act, and it happens because they don't understand that the walking in the Spirit begins and ends in absolute surrender to God, and that you approximate a genuine surrender (outward obedience) all you want (and many Christians do this their entire "walk"!) but doing so is in no way walking in the Spirit - it just makes you a Pharisee.
I know that you weren't suggesting anything to the contrary, but I thought that was a little unclear, and because that is my favorite soap box, well, you know.
Okay, I will shut up now. ;-)
He he he, I knew for sure you would go there, or at least pick up on the fact that Jesus was talking about their attitude when he said spirit...it is good to me, as you very well know, so I am glad I did this, left it alone, as it were, so that you would go there, because, unfortunately, there are still some who come over here that don't venture over to your place, and now they will perhaps see why it would be a good investment of their time to check it out...didn't mean to be overtly devious, but I had written this piece more than 5 years ago, was going to post it, then looked at it closer and realized it might not say all it needs to say, but then thought "you know, trying to get a complete thought in 350-500 words doesn't really do this sort of topic justice, no matter how you slice it, but I'll leave it for Daniel to hit his fastball topic out of the park"...
True story, and if that means you are predictible in this area, well praise the Lord, indeed!
It feels good to be anticipated in this way! Thanks JD!
Very enlightening and absolutely something to ponder and pray about. Thanks to both of you. Thank God for men of like precious faith that will "go there" when necessary.
Haha, the post cameth out.
I agree completely... And Dan's thoughts were well predicted.
Now THAT was some good stuff guys. Praise God for your collective ability to impart this knowledge and understanding to your readers. I surely was blessed.
Lynda
Hey J.D. ……..Query, regarding “willing and the weak” Is it, “I breathe therefore I live” or “I live therefore I breathe“? Which is the voluntary and which is the intended?
Or again, “I walk therefore I live” or “I live therefore I walk”? The most basic of actions, yet even in that is there a choice?
Don’t worry if you don’t have an answer J.D. just trying to work something out in my mind.
Looks like I have a lot of catching up to do, between your blog and Shining the Truth’s blog.
See you Sunday.
Anon (Paul?)
Look at Daniel's reply in this comment thread, and see if that helps...otherwise, let me know...
Thank you for the suggestion JD, Daniel’s input was clarifying.On a differnt subject,there will be a series of post on my blog that you might find interesting. Look for the first to be there soon. See you in the a.m. (Paul) P.s. it won't let me log on as my username. any idea? (words on truth)
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