War, Swords & Spirits

I love God's law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.
(Rom 7:22-23)

The life of a follower of Jesus is joy… it is peace… it is life… and it is war. War?! We have received a gift of new life, real life you might say. Salvation is the restoration of our total being towards shalom or wholeness of mind, body and spirit. Yet our new life, the Christian life, is the process of feeding the new nature which loves God and simultaneously killing our old nature which loves sin. There is within us all a part which loves sin…so what is your poison? Anger, jealousy, pride, sex, back-stabbing, gossip, lust, gluttony, laziness, self-indulgence, caffeine, alcohol.

We are at war, in ourselves to kill these old desires and awaken new desires. Not to repress or cover over or avoid these desires but to kill, strangle, suffocate, lynch, mortify them. How? By the spirit. So then, brothers and sisters, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh… but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live (Rom 8:12-13).

How do we engage the Spirit of God to kill the sin our lives? By feasting on the Word of God which is the Sword of the Spirit (Eph 6:17). Apart from faith in the Word of God we will disconnect the very power that is able to kill sin our lives. We must fight fleshly desires with all our might, but that alone will not kill sin. The dynamic power of the Word of God cuts to the heart and is the instrument the Spirit uses to root out the cancer of our sin. Don’t make peace with sin and cover it up, call a war. Don’t try to tame it, kill it by the Spirit. Embrace the war. Expose the war. Engage the war.

For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires (Heb 4:12).