Managing the war within

No one likes to live in continual conflict. It is just not fun. It is bad enough to live in conflict with family, co-workers or those who politically believe the polar opposite of you, but to be in conflict with yourself all the time is tiring. For the Christian though, this is our life. If you are a born-again believer in Christ and have doubted your salvation because of this ongoing inner conflict, you are not weird and you are not alone. That may not bring you much comfort as someone who longs to please the Lord, but it is biblical.

The apostle Paul wrote much about this war within. He lamented his own struggles in his letter to the Romans when he famously said, “I don’t practice what I want to do, but I do exactly what I hate. Now if I do what I don’t want, I am no longer the one that does it, but it is the sin that lives in me. My inner self delights in God’s ways, but I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thank God, I am delivered through Jesus!”

The paradox is that we live in a body of death but have new life in the Spirit. God sealed us with his Spirit when we believed in Jesus as the only source of our salvation. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul writes, “The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. The Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what our old sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so that you are not free to carry out your good intentions.” (Galatians 5:17)

The source of the conflict is that we have two births, one that is physical and one that is spiritual. Our human birth made us capable of sinning until we die. Our second birth of believing in Christ makes us righteous and fit for eternity in heaven. The challenging reality is this: While on Earth in a human body, we live two lives simultaneously, one in the body and one in the spirit.

Knowing that we will always act according to our strongest desires, the daily decision we must make is this: Which desires will we nourish, the body or the spirit? The apostles did not teach us to pray away sinful desires. Paul told us to “put on the new self, the one created in God’s likeness in righteousness and purity.” Who does the putting on of the new nature? We do, as an act of our will through prayer and Bible study. Paul also wrote, “Rid yourselves of anger, slander, and filthy language.” Who is responsible for getting rid of it? We are, as an act of our will.

If we spend the majority of our time feeding the lower nature, that is, the cravings of our body and mind, we have no excuse for complaining about the inner conflict. But if we spend the majority of our time feeding the new, born-from-above spiritual nature with prayer, Bible reading and Christian fellowship, we will have a much easier time managing the war within because we will be walking in the spirit.

Ken Staley is pastor of Faith Church of Pleasant Grove at 9:30 a.m. and Harrisville Methodist Church at 11 a.m. Both are Global Methodist congregations. He can be reached at pastorkenstaley@gmail.com.