Winning the war against your flesh

If you are a Christian, you will understand that our flesh likes to wage war against our spirit. What does that mean? It means that when you surrender your life to Jesus Christ and believe God raised him from the grave, you put Jesus at the center of your life. Because of our faith in Jesus, he sends us the Holy Spirit to live within us. The Holy Spirit living in us helps us live a life that God originally called us to before the fall of mankind.

Now our flesh is our life before we trusted in Jesus as our Savior. Our flesh wants to remain in power, so it wages war against the spirit, and there are times when the flesh wins the fight. But remember, we have the Holy Spirit within us. John, the disciple, tells us in his first-second book, 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  John is writing this to fellow Christians who are living in a world of deep-rooted sin around them. These brothers and sisters in Christ fell to temptation and willfully sinned. John tells them, WHEN you sin, confess your sins to God through Jesus Christ, and the Spirit cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This letter does not only apply to his readers 2,000 years ago; it also applies to us today.

How did Paul the Apostle win the war against his flesh? Well, he did, and he didn’t. Remember when he wrote to the church in Rome? Paul said, I do the things I know I shouldn’t do, but I do them, and the things I know I ought to do, I don’t. Paul was like you and me. We all do things we don’t want to do, and we all don’t do the things we know we should do. But how did Paul finish this statement? He said in Chapter 8 in Romans, “There is therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ.” Because we set our faith in Jesus, we have been redeemed. Now that doesn’t mean we no longer sin. We are breathing air, and if you breathe air, you are a sinner. But, you are a sinner saved by grace.

With this knowledge how are you winning the war against your flesh? When the flesh wins, remember, we have the Holy Spirit within us, and when we ask God to forgive us from our mess-ups, He will forgive us.