have to grow in their walks but are discouraged with the constant struggle and battle that they have with the flesh.
The text that I am using is from, “Christian Educator’s Handbook and Spiritual Formation, edited by Kenneth O. Gangel and James C. Wilhoit,” which I think does an excellent job of laying out both the problem along with some solutions to helping us continue to strive for Christlikeness.
Each of us grows up in surroundings that train us to speak, think, feel and act like others around us. “Monkey see, monkey do,” goes the proverb. This is the mechanism by which human personality is formed, and it is largely for the good.
But it also embeds in us habits of evil that permeate all human life. Humanly standard patterns of responding to “The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” which the Apostle John said make up “the world” (I John 2:16), seize upon little children through their participation in the lives of those around them. Sinful practices become their habits, then their choice, and finally their character.
The very language they learn to speak incorporates desecration of God and neighbor. They come to identify themselves and be identified by others through these practices. What is wrong and distructive is done without thinking about it. The wrong thing to do seems quite ‘natural’, while the right thing to do becomes forced and unnatural at best–especially if done because it is right. You can observe this in almost any eight or ten year old child acting freely with their peers or living in the family setting.
The New Testament texts normally uses the word “flesh” to refer to the human body formed in the ways of evil and against God. Not that the human body as such, or even desires as such, are evil. They are God’s good creations, and capable of serving and glorifying Him, as we have seen already. But when shaped in a life context of family, neighborhood, school and work that is godless or anti-God, they constitute a pervasive structure of evil.
Desire then becomes the “sinful passions at work in our bodies.” (Rom 7:5) Our very body is poised to sin, only awaiting the occasion. As God said to Cain in the ancient story, “Sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” (Gen 4:7) The situation becomes so bad that Paul says “nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh.” (Rom 7:18)
When we come to new life in Christ, our body and its deformed desire system do not automatically shift to the side of Christ, but continue to oppose Him. Occasionally a remarkable change may occur, such as total relief from an addiction. But this is very infrequent, and it is never true that the habits of sin generally are displaced from our bodily parts and personality by the new birth.
James reminds us that “each one is tempted when by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” (James 1:14-15) Peter urges us, “as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.” (I Peter 2:11) Paul tells us that if we live in terms of the flesh we will die, “But if by the spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” (Rom 8:13) Elsewhere he cites his own example as one who “beats my body to make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.” (I Cor 9:27) And all of these are statements to Christians of long standing.
Admittedly, this sounds strange in today’s religious context. It is a simple fact that nowadays the task of becoming Christlike is rarely taken as a serious objective to be thoughtfully planned for, and the reality of our embodied personality dealt with accordingly.
Before many church and para-church groups I have inquired what is their plan for putting to death or mortifying “whatever belongs to your earthly nature” or flesh. (Col 3:5 etc. etc.) I have never had a positive response to this question. Indeed, mortifying or putting things to death doesn’t seem to be the kind of thing today’s Christians would be caught doing. Yet there it stands, at the center of the New Testament teachings.
When Jesus taught about discipleship, on the other hand, He made it very clear that one could not be the servant of the body and its demands and also succeed in His course of training. This is the meaning of what He said about denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and “losing our life” for His sake and the Gospel’s (Matt 8:35, 10:29, 16:24-26), and about “forsaking all” to follow Him. (Luke 14:25-35) It is the same theme that is struck by Paul: “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.” (Gla 5:24) He puts in contrast those who make a god of their belly (Rom 16:18, Phil 3:19), the ‘belly’ being the bodily center of desire.
Of course one cannot overcome the hardened patterns of desires by force of will alone. Rather, it is as we by faith place our bodily being in subordination to Christ that we experience a new presence in our members, moving them toward the good things of God and allowing the old bodily forces to recede into the background of life where they belong. Thus it truly is “by the spirit” that we “put to death the misdeeds of the body.” The natural desires, and my body itself, remain with me, of course, but now as servants of God and of my will to serve Him, not as my masters.
Our part in this transformation, in addition to constant faith and hope in Christ, is purposful, strategic use of our bodies in ways which will retrain them, replacing “the motions of sin in our members” with the motions of Christ. This is how we take up our cross daily. It is how we submit our bodies a living sacrifice, how we “offer the parts of our body to him as instruments of righteousness.” (Rom 6:13)
Sometimes, of course, submission to God means just to do what pleases Him. Ultimately that is always our aim. But frequently we are unable to do this by direct effort. Often when we come to do the right thing we have already done the wrong thing, because that is what was sitting in our body “at the ready.” Intention alone cannot suffice in most situations where we find ourselves. We must be “in shape.” If not, “trying” will normally be too late, or totally absent. Instead, our intention and effort must be carried into effect by training which leaves our body poised to do what Christ would do well before the occasion arises. Such training is supplied by THE DISCIPLINES FOR LIFE IN THE SPIRIT.
Hey all you seniors who are starting that dreaded career fair and interview process – here’s a little article recently released by 
I’ve recently come across two different postings that I have really helped reorient my perspective of how God is using me within the context of vocational ministries. The truth is, I needed both these posts as of late to help me to “reorient” myself to being sold out to God, allowing Him to work through me, and depending more and more on Him to do whatever it is that He wants to do.
One of the many topics/discussions that have come up during my time with students over the last several weeks is this frustration between the desire to grow spiritually in their walks but the defeat that the sometimes accompanies us due to our fleshly nature.
Every once in awhile I will jump over to the 
As I continue to dabble in the whole “What is Community” (You can find the previous posts 
