The Battle of Spirit and Flesh

It all started when God made man out of dirt, he breathed into man and man became a living being. We are primarily spirits living in earthly flesh bodies. The problem is, the spirit functions differently than the body and its components are different than that of the dirt body, so we know that the desires of the spirit and flesh would be different from each other. But why would God put us in such a conflicting situation? How do we satisfy our spirit and our flesh?

In the beginning, both the spirit and the body were in sync. Man true will was to satisfy the spirit first, which then influenced the desire of the flesh. And so he was intentional about caring for the body by meeting the needs of the body (food, water, etc.) and also for the spirit by fellowshipping with God in the cool of the day and nourishing the maturity of his spirit. When sin entered the world, the spirit fellowship between God and man ceased and the spirit of man began to starve giving more authority to the desires of the flesh. With all the focus being placed on the fleshly desires, we lured our spirits to want what the flesh wants. We lost our abilities to have control over our spirit. We needed God himself to redeem our spirits back to himself.

When Christ died, he wasn't redeeming our earthly bodies but our spirits/souls. Though our spirits are redeemed, we can not, on our own, maintain fellowship with the heavenly father because sin still lives in the world and we have gotten used to it. That's why we need the Holy Spirit to help our spirits stay in sync with God. You would think that this should make it easier but this actually intensifies the battle between spirit and flesh. Why? Because now, through the holy spirit, we know what the spirit desires to be, the requirements to live a Christlike life, and it's quite different from what the flesh wants. Paul confesses in Romans 7:15 that he does not understand what he does, because what he wants to do, he doesn't do but what he hates to do is what he does. This is the simplest example of the war between spirit and flesh. Romans 8:9 says, "those controlled by the sinful nature, "flesh", can not please God. God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth John 4:24. To be in sync with God is to be in sync with the Holy Spirit, to live according to the Spirit. Those who live according to the Spirit have their minds set on things of the Spirit. It becomes your desire to do the will of the Spirit and though difficult, you are conscious of your weakness, therefore, surrendering to the Spirit. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness Romans 8:26.

What does this look like in reality? This is when you choose to watch your favorite tv series instead of studying the Word, sleeping instead of praying, gossiping instead of uplifting, clubbing instead of spending time in the house of the Lord. Consuming harmful substances instead of keeping your temple clean, and violating your body through sexual pleasures instead of keeping your temple holy, and the list continues. All of these choices are desires of the flesh versus desires of the spirit and we are constantly in the fight to choose one over the other. Whichever desire you feed more is what grows. Romans 8:6 says, the mind of the sinful man is death, and the mind of the spirit is life and peace. May you choose today whom you serve, and hopefully your will is more of the Spirit.