Do you ever struggle with the desires of the flesh? You know you want to walk the right way, but the fleshly desires of your humanness are loud and screaming inside to be satisfied. What do you do? How do you overcome? What do you do when you are in the heat of the moment and give in? What do you do afterwards? This struggle, this war within and without never ceases to end. How do we get the victory? How do we overcome? Wars of the Flesh!

Romans 7:21-8:4 …So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! … Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit…

Every time we meet with the law, we meet with defeat! Let me say that again, every time we meet with the law, we meet with defeat! When we try to live up to what we should do, we judge ourselves according to the law. The law has already judged us and we are worthy of death. We can’t help but sin, it is in our nature. There is no escape in the flesh. Paul says we are a prisoner of the law of sin within us. How will we overcome? Who will rescue us? There I go, except by the grace of God. Get this please, and my inner man also, except by grace we are capable of doing the same terrible and horrible things that are done in the world every day. Grace! Grace! Grace! If we can really understand this next scripture, it will set us totally free.

Ephesians 2:8-10 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

So now, if we are saved by grace, and according to Romans, we have been set free from the law of sin and death, why on earth would we ever want to live according to it again? We do, because that is how we were taught. Some church leaders need some kind of hold on their people, they can’t just let them run wild in the Spirit of God and have some fun and overcoming in Him, now can they? Now, this isn’t always the case, a lot of leaders simply don’t know. They don’t understand this passage. Get the whip out and let’s beat ourselves for missing the mark again. Does this sound familiar? It does to me, I’ve done it and sometimes I still get caught up in it. Woe is me, I failed again. SELF-PITY! The devil loves self-pity. He uses this spirit to render mighty men and women of God defenseless. As long as we are in a pity party, we are of no help to the Lord or ourselves. In all fairness, there are also a lot of leaders who understand this truth and operate in it bringing freedom to their groups.

REFOCUS! I am writing this as much to myself as anyone else out there. We are free from the law of sin and death. Focus on Life in the Spirit and you can’t be judged because the righteous requirements of the law have been fully met in Jesus. If we are living in the Spirit, we are the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. We are spotless and blameless and this is according to His word. The law has no more control over us, unless we allow it. The devil cannot blame us anymore unless we accept his judgments, nor can anyone else. We stand guiltless and sinless before the Lord. Is there anyone else that dares to judge us otherwise? Are they God? Do they stand against Him? We are His children and He will protect us.

Do some reading about the prophets and people of old? Were their lives perfect? Did they obey every word? Would you have chosen them to represent God? What about Abraham and his fears and mistakes? Look at David and his adultery with his friend’s wife and if that wasn’t bad enough, he had him set up to be killed on the battlefield. What about Paul and the fact that the Lord chose him as an apostle when he was the guy who was pursuing and killing the disciples. Peter denied the Lord not once, but three times and the Lord still put him in charge of others saying, “Peter, feed my sheep.” We are in good company. We are human. We make mistakes, but praise the Lord that it is by grace that we are saved. We are not under the law, but under grace. This doesn’t give me a license to sin, on the contrary, if I live in the spirit I won’t even focus on sinning or not, I’ll simply live. I’ll be focused on Him and His love. I’ll be focused on the needs of others. I’ll be so caught up in His love, some things simply won’t matter anymore. This is where I want to stay, wrapped up in His love while living here on earth.

There is a higher way to live. Take gravity for instance, for so many years we were taught that what goes up, must come down. Then NASA sent a rocket to the moon and it didn’t come back down. We simply superseded the law of gravity. This is how it is in the Spirit. This is how it is with the way of the eagle, soaring high above the things that would try to bring it down. We too, can fly above our circumstances. We realize they are there and we continue to work towards their resolve, but we can do it in an attitude of love and confidence that we will overcome. This is the difference.

I have posted other articles for your reading. We have free encouraging wallpapers and a questionnaire to help you showcase your desires, talents and abilities. There is also music and an art print on the path of life. Feel free to check back twice a week for new posts and if you know of anyone who needs to be encouraged, send them a link. If I haven’t quite worded something right, please forgive me, I am limited by my own humanness. Please catch the spirit of what I am saying. Let’s give each other the room to make mistakes. If you see any bloopers, feel free to laugh. Enjoy your life. Get caught up in Holy Spirit and your life will take on a new meaning. Check out some of my other posts if you want to know how to get closer to Him. As my friend in London says, “Have a lovely day.”

Joseph