JOHN 17:1-4-Jesus spoke these things, looked up to heaven, and said: Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son so that the Son may glorify You, for You gave Him authority over all flesh; so He may give eternal life to all You have given Him. This is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and the One You have sent—Jesus Christ. I have glorified You on the earth by completing the work You gave Me to do.”
The Christian life is a war. Every true believer knows this truth by scripture knowledge and personal experience. It is intense. It is never-ending in life. The foes are three–the devil, the world, and our flesh. Regarding the devil, he is crafty and malicious, roaming around as a roaring lion seeking to devour us (1 Peter 5:8). The world? It seeks to destroy our testimony for Christ or at least distract us from the Lord by its many pleasures and passions. A sad example is that of Demas – Make every effort to come to me soon, for Demas has deserted me, because he loved this present world, and has gone to Thessalonica (2 Timothy 4:9-10). Then we come to our spiritual foe of our flesh. As formidable as the devil and world are, this foe causes us the greatest spiritual damage and the most relenting. But we must make a distinction between the works of the flesh and the subtle areas our flesh hinders our spiritual lives.
First, the works of the flesh are described by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Galatians – Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar. I tell you about these things in advance—as I told you before—that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God (Galatians 5:19-21). Take another look at this list. We may struggle once in a while with jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, but we are likely not going to shipwreck our faith and bring public disgrace to the Gospel by willful acts of sexual immorality, moral impurity, and promiscuity. The works of the flesh are habitual, and the child of God will not persist in these. However, there is another area of the flesh we are easily defeated by in the spiritual life. Jesus tells us what it is in His dialogue with His disciples – “Stay awake and pray, so that you won’t enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak”(Matthew26:41). It is the weakness of our flesh.
When defining the weakness of our flesh, all of us know this well, painfully so. For instance, ever sit down to read your Bible and notice how sleepy we get? Or attempting to pray and get drowsy? Weakness of the flesh. How telling it is to be able to sit engaged in a movie or worldly event without drifting or being distracted! The flesh never cooperates in spiritual disciplines. It will never whisper, “Sure, read your Bible, I won’t bother you” or “Pray? No problem. Let me know when you are done.” Yet, we don’t have to give into the pull of our flesh. Today’s scripture points us to the way of victory. Jesus declares His Father has given Him authority over all flesh. Yes, it is authority by position as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, but it is also authority by power. The next time the flesh wants to lead you to compromise or neglect spiritual discipline in the Word, prayer, even church attendance, cry out to the Lord of all authority for help. He has told us, “Ask and you will receive for the joy of the Lord will be your strength”(Matthew 7:7; Nehemiah 8:10). Believe Him. He will be true to His Word!
PRAYER: “Father, teach me to appropriate Your Son’s power to defeat my war against my flesh.”
QUOTE: “Our flesh never will give us a pass in the war it wages against us. It is constant in this life.”
Because of Him,
Pastor Jim