GET UP!
GOD IS NOT FINISHED WITH YOU!
Chapter 6
Battle of the Flesh
Who Will Be God?
“For I am confident of
this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the
day of Christ Jesus,” (Philippines 1:6)
Battle of the Flesh
The struggle of the flesh is an
awesome and tremendous battle. From cradle to grave it is a never ending
battle. There are none who are free from it. Before we are saved it is a battle
for our souls. It will determine where we will spend eternity. After we are
saved the battle continues. It determines the quality and the effectiveness of
our lives here on earth and our rewards in eternity. Even the Apostle Paul in
the book of Romans describes himself as a partaker in this battle. “For I know
that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is
present in me, but the doing of the good is not” (Romans 7:18). “I find then
the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good” (Romans
7:21). Paul then concludes his frustration. “Wretched man that I am! Who will
set me free from the body of this death” (Romans 7:24)?
The
battle of the flesh is who will be the God of our souls. For mankind this
battle started in the Garden of Eden. The liar said “you will be like God”
(Genesis 3:5). This is the battle of all mankind and of each person. Who will
be God? Will Satan be the god of my life or will my Creator be the God of my
life?
In the Old Testament we see Israel
has always struggled with this battle. Israel’s backslide from God came time
after time. They would consistently seek after other gods to rule them. God
calls these gods idols. “Then those of you who escape will remember me among
the nations where they are carried captive, how I have been broken over their
whoring heart that has departed from me and over their eyes that go whoring
after their idols. And they will be loathsome in their own sight for the evils
that they have committed, for all their abominations,” (Ezekiel 6:9). God said
Israel had “Whoring hearts” that were “whoring after their idols.”
The Idols of Man
At the heart of our struggle is will
our idols of selves or the idols of the things of this world rule us, or will our
Creator, our Lord and God rule our hearts, our souls? The Apostle John put the
struggle of the world and us together like this. “Do not love the world nor the
things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not
in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the
eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the
world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the
will of God lives forever,” (1 John 2:15-17).
The idols are "lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the
boastful pride of life”. These are the idols of the world. The master of the
world is Satan. “Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed
Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; and he said to Him, 'All
these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me,'” (Matthew 4:8,
9). The devil said the price for the kingdoms of the world was to “fall down
and worship me.”
Who will be Your God?
Satan is the god of all those who are
not ruled by the Lord God Almighty. When we choose to rule ourselves and follow
our lust, we really choose to be ruled by Satan Himself. “And you were dead in
your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course
of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit
that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly
lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the
mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest,” (Ephesians
2:1-3).
Don’t be deceived, if the Lord Jesus
is not the God of your life then Satan is. Here is what Moses said to Israel
about God or gods. "See, I have set before you today life and prosperity,
and death and adversity,” (Deuteronomy 30:15). Moses made it clear to Israel
that they must make a choice. That choice was life and prosperity or death and
adversity. Their obedient choice was to “walk in His ways and to keep His
commandments and His statutes and His judgments.” By obedience to God their
reward was “that you may live and multiply, and that the LORD your God may
bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it.” To Love God is to obey God. By obeying God,
He became their God. "If you love Me, you will keep My
commandments," (John 14:15).
However, by disobeying God, or “…if
your heart turns away and you will not obey,” they “worship other gods and
serve them” (Satan). "But if your heart turns away and you will not obey,
but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them,” Deuteronomy 30:17).
Our choice is clear; obey and worship God, or disobey and “worship other gods
and serve them.” Satan is the chief of the “other gods”. We serve the Lord God
or Satan and his demons.
So the question remains, who will be
the god of our lives? The choice is ours. You can choose humbly to obey God, or
by prideful rebellion you choose the devil. If you are in rebellion then Satan
is your God. If you are slipping into rebellion, you are in the process of
removing God and replacing Him with Satan. I hope that is a sobering thought.
It certainly is for me as I continue my own battle.
“I Will”
Here is the boast of Satan. He
refused God and wanted to be his own God. He wanted to overthrow God and become
God. "But you said in your heart, 'I
will ascend to heaven; I will
raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the
clouds; I will make myself like the
Most High," (Isaiah 14:13, 14). The five “I wills” of Satan are the five
“I wills” of rebellion. “I” is the center of rebellion. To obey God is to
remove the “I” of my life. It is God’s will or “I” will. The last “I will” of
Satan is “I will make myself like the Most High”. That was the lie to Eve. The
deceiver said “you will be like God” (Genesis 3:5). The TRUTH is we will not be
like God but like Satan.
In your rebellion do you raise
yourself above God? Do you raise your own “throne above the stars of God”? Do
you, in your rebellious actions, become the “Most High” of your own life? I
did. Sometimes I still do.
The
liar said “you will be like God” (Genesis 3:5). In rebellion we want to be the
god of our life. Do you rule over your own decisions? Do you make your own
decisions on what sins you will continue with? Have you been the god of your
own life for so long now that God is no longer your God? Have you ruled your
own life for so long that you can only acknowledge that Jesus is God, but in reality
He is no longer God of you or your life?
Expectation of Judgment
Do you now shudder at the idea of
judgment? “You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe,
and shudder,” (James 2:19).
When I was at the peak of my rebellion I could
remember this verse. “For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the
knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a
terrifying expectation of judgment and THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME
THE ADVERSARIES,” (Hebrews 10:26, 27). I can remember driving home many times so drunk and drug high that I was not sure I would make it home alive. I would pray to the Lord not to take my life now. I did not want to die while in my rebellion to Him. I prayed that He would give me time to repent before the end of my life. Of course, the next day I would go on living as if I never prayed that prayer. I knew God, but He was no longer my God. In fact, I shuddered at His name. Inside me was the fear of the Lord. This fear was not awesome respect for the God who created me, loves me and forgives me, but fearful expectation that He could judge me, because I had gone so far astray that my life was a testimony of open rebellion. My life declared that I was now my own god worshiping the idols of Satan. The appetites of my flesh were now my idols, and I worshiped them openly and without regard for God. Like Satan, I had set my throne above His Throne. In rebellion we fear death! The one who knows God and then leaves God has a “terrifying expectation of judgment”. It’s part of the Holy Spirit driving us back to God. The Apostle John records Jesus this way about the Holy Spirit "And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged,” (John 16:8-10). The fear of judgment comes from the Holy Spirit to lead us back to repentance “concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged”. Because we knew the truth, we know what’s coming; judgment!
The Dark Side
This is not the dark side of the
force, Luke. It’s the darkness of evil. There is darkness in rebellion. Those
who experience darkness know it well. That darkness is depravity. This word depravity,
in Greek, was used of coin that was so far deficient of sliver weight that it
was no longer good as a coin. People would shave a little silver off and pass
the coin back into circulation. A little shave here and a little shave there
and eventually it was no longer good as a coin. It was no longer the coin it
was meant to be. It was considered inadequate or depraved. It was depraved of
what was needed to be a coin. In our journey down the roads of lust of the
flesh, lust of the eye, and lust of pride, the goodness or light of life we
once had becomes lost. We lose a little here and a little there and over time
it is all gone. Only darkness or evil remains. Now depraved of light, these
souls are rejected by God as no longer good for what they were created for. In
this state we find the very worst of men. We find these men at the top of every
heap of eye’s lust for possessions or heap of prideful accomplishments or
perverted lust of flesh.
Jesus said, "But if your eye is
bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you
is darkness, how great is the darkness,” (Matthew 6:23)! Truly, those in rebellion are in great darkness
and fear the coming of the Lord. I had numerous dreams of the coming judgment
day and I would wake in terrible fear. After the fear wore off, I went right on
with my rebellious life. Satan had become the complete ruler of my life. BUT,
thank God the Holy Spirit did not let go. He kept prodding what little was left
of my soul.
Realize I’m Not God
This is the first step of victory in
the battle of the flesh. We have to come to the conclusion that our flesh is
evil. We must realize that our lives cannot be lived controlled by our own
desires. In Celebrate Recovery’s 8 principles and 12 steps program, it says
that we first have to admit that we are powerless to control our lives because
of our sinful nature. The first principle is to “Realize I’m not God.”
“Principle 1: Realize I’m not God. I
admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and that
my life is unmanageable.
“Happy are those who know they are
spiritually poor.” (Matthew 5:3)
Step 1: We admitted we were powerless
over our addictions and compulsive behaviors, that our lives had become
unmanageable." [i]
Paul’s
conclusion was “Who will set me free from the body of this death”. Paul
concluded this after, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, his own examination of
himself. Paul said “I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the
one who wants to do good,” (Romans 7:21).
Genuine
repentance can only come from a broken heart before the Lord. Our heart must be
broken by the consequences of our rebellion; sin. These consequences from sin
that break our heart, lead us to a contrite and repentant heart before our
Savior. They lead us to ask God to return our lives. After having experienced
darkness, the fear of death, and the consequences of our sin, we reach out to
God once more. Now in hope we cry out to God for forgiveness and life. We pray
that He will receive us back and restore Himself as our Lord and Savior.
The one who has openly rebelled and
become his own god must be humbled. We must come to a point in our life that we
realize we are not God. We must come to realize that the false god, “I",
can only bring death and destruction to our lives. To realize that I am not god
is the beginning of humility. Therefore, humility causes us to seek God again.
Humility is to take the “I” out of “I will” and replace "I" with
"God", God’s will.
“Spiritually Poor”
“Happy
are those who know they are spiritually poor,” (Matthew 5:3 Good news
Translation). The poor in spirit are the ones who have little of their own
spirit left. The poor in spirit are those who have hit the end of the way of
being their own god. They are the ones who have realized that the lie of being
their own god is death. They have by the reality of the disaster of their own
lives, come to realize the truth of the lie. The truth of the lie is they
cannot be their own god. They have reaped the lie’s consequences. I came to
this conclusion and cried out to God for help. I could no longer bare the
consequence of my life. I NO LONGER WANTED TO BE MY OWN GOD! My spirit had been
nearly wasted completely away. I was nearly completely dead. I was deficient in
spirit; poor in spirit.
I
had food poisoning a couple of times. I can no longer eat the food that
poisoned me. Even its smell is still repulsive to me. The first step in the
battle of the flesh is to come to know the bitter reality of the poison of the
lie and the destruction it has caused to our lives and our souls. The lie of
the serpent was "You surely will not die” (Genesis 3:4). We cannot be
“Like God” (Genesis 3:5). God alone created us and only He can be our God. When
He is our God we have life. Life only comes from God. We can only live through
Him and by Him.
“We know
that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that
we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus
Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, guard
yourselves from idols, (1 John 5:19-21).
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