by Jacob Ninan
Jesus used a parable at the end of what we call as the sermon on the mount, about two men who built their houses, one on the rock and the other on the sand (Matt.7:24-27). We would miss the point Jesus was trying to make if we focus on the rock versus the sand and imagine that the rock represents Jesus and the sand all other things we can place our faith on! Jesus was actually trying to contrast two types of responses from people who had listened to His words. Some people, even though they had listened to those words, did not do anything about what they heard. They did not allow the words to change their practical life in any way. But some other people took the words seriously and changed their life accordingly. James pointed out that it was no use hearing the words of God if we did not take action according to them (Jas.1:22). We would only deceive ourselves then. Faith that does not lead to action is dead (Jas.2:17).
This is one danger we face. Just because we have heard good teachings and we have mentally agreed with them, it does not mean that we have experienced salvation. Merely 'accepting' the Gospel is not enough for salvation.
Some other people have experienced miraculous interventions from God in their life. They have been healed, or have had miraculous answers to their prayers in their times of difficulty. Some of them, therefore, 'put their trust in Jesus', and begin to attend church, read the Bible, etc. But while this kind of experience may draw us to Jesus, we cannot think that we have experienced salvation or that we have become children of God! This is another deception people face. In the days of Jesus, many people began to follow Him after seeing and experiencing His miracles. But He knew that they were not following Him because they had come to know who He was and because they wanted to follow Him in order to become like Him, but only because they wanted some benefits from Him (Jn.6:26).
Jesus made it very clear that unless we were born again, we could not even 'see' the kingdom of God (Jn.3:3). If we want to be born again, we must first of all see ourselves as hopeless sinners in the sight of the holy God and see that what we deserve for our sins is eternal death in hell. Then we can go to Jesus who came to save us from our sins (Matt.1:21), who has taken our punishment in our place, and receive forgiveness as a free gift. Then we will, in gratitude, surrender ourselves to Him as a living sacrifice (Rom.12:1). If this has not taken place in our life, we must not assume that we are fine with God just because we agree with the doctrines or we have experienced some supernatural things from God.
After we have been born again and made children of God, how do we live after that? Some people think that we should go to church, read the Bible and pray regularly, etc. That again can be very deceptive if we do not live daily the way Jesus has shown us. "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me" (Lk.9:23). The cross we have to carry is not some person who is very troublesome! When someone was seen carrying a cross in the days of Jesus, everyone knew that he was going to be dead before the end of the day. When we carry our cross 'daily', it means that we are willing to die every day to our self in order to follow Jesus. Then we deny our own will in order to do the will of God. If this is not happening, we are not going to become like Jesus.
When we make the decision to seriously follow Jesus, we come across a giant enemy opposing us. I am not talking here about the Devil, even though he is also a big enemy for us. Someone has said that when he started the Christian life, the greatest enemy he found was himself! We too will find that there is an enemy opposing us from within us, whenever we want to do the will of God. That enemy is our 'flesh'. Sometimes the word flesh is used to describe a part of our body, as in 'flesh and blood'. But the New Testament sometimes uses 'flesh' in a different way to denote the part of us that produces sinful passions and desires and prompts us to please ourselves (Gal.5:24). This verse tells us that as those who belong to Christ, we are expected to keep this flesh 'crucified' so that these passions and desires do not get a chance to live and produce sinful results.
At this point we realise that there is a war going on within us. The Holy Spirit whom we have received when we were born again is fighting against our flesh, trying to subdue it, and the flesh opposes the Spirit because it wants us to yield to its desires (Gal.5:16,17). Some Christians do not acknowledge this war inside them, but imagine that because Jesus has won the victory over sin and Satan, they will not need to face any fight. The apostle Paul described his own experience saying that when he wanted to do the will of God, he found that there was something else inside him that sometimes made him do things he did not agree with in his mind (Rom.7:18-20). Unfortunately, some Christians wrongly interpret this passage saying that this was a description of Paul's life before he got converted and that his present life was described by chapter 8. However, we can see that he used the present tense in describing his experience in chapter 7. Godly men over the centuries have acknowledged this fight that went on inside them. One such man has described it in a book called 'Two of me' (not talking about a split personality!). But he was describing this fight between the Holy Spirit and his flesh going on inside him.The 'new man' that has been planted into us by the Holy Spirit wants to please God, and our flesh wants to please ourselves. The question is which side we are in. Gal.5:16 says that if we walk according to the Spirit we will not have to carry out the desires of our flesh.
Some Christians quote different verses to prove that everything is fine in their life and there is no more war or struggle in their life. God has described through many verses how our lives are going to be and how He wants it in our life. But it would be unrealistic for us to imagine that we have already reached there, instead of recognising that we are on our way there and making sure that we are going in that direction.
James says that we are tempted when we are lured by the desires of our flesh (Jas.1:14.15). Even if there was no provocation from outside, these desires are enough to tempt us. That is why those who went into monasteries or sat alone on top of a mountain have discovered that they had carried their flesh with them and that they still had sinful desires coming up from the flesh! Of course, we are also tempted by the Devil and the attractions of this world. Such temptations are effective only because there are desires in our flesh that correspond to them. It is when we agree with the temptation and yield to it that we sin—our lust conceives and then brings out an actual sinful action. On the contrary, if we deny our desires when they tempt us, that is victory! (We must not unnecessarily get into condemnation just because we feel the temptation. Remember, Jesus too was tempted, but He did not sin. We must not imagine that we have already become defiled just because we felt the temptation in our mind, if we have managed in the end to deny ourselves and follow Jesus.)
Let us look at a schematic diagram to see how to face and overcome temptation.
Here we see that something that happens to us can trigger some desires from our flesh. Sometimes the Devil also places ideas into our mind that then provoke desires from our flesh. When these desires come up, we decide (use our will) to do something about them, either to yield to them or to resist them. That is how we either suffer defeat or experience victory.
Here I am adding a new element, our mind, into the diagram to make things clearer. The first time, or in a new sitution, when we are tempted from the flesh, we listen to whatever is already stored in our memory, which may not be enough for us to know how to overcome. But after we fall, we can use our mind to think about why we fell, and get in touch with God through His word to learn how we could have overcome. Now we can see that the next time we are tempted, our mind is prepared better to overcome.
Here I add two things that provide inputs from outside to our mind—the world around us, and the word of God. We receive many ideas and suggestions from the world, through TV, movies, internet, etc., that slowly shape our values and decisions. We should not imagine that we are safe because we know what to receive and what to reject, because over a period of time of constant exposure to worldly values, our values will get corrupted by the world. Therefore, even though we cannot completely cut off the world, because we get exposed to many things as we live in this world, we have to decide how much we consciously allow to get into our mind. This is where we have to enforce discipline on ourselves. On the contrary, the more we study the word of God, that is what is going to renew our mind and teach us godly values (Rom.12:2).
Paul exhorts us to richly fill our mind with the word of God (Col.3:16). We should also learn to depend on the power of the Holy Spirit to strengthen us to say no to our flesh (Rom.8:13). That is how we will be able to prevail in this war that is going on inside us, and follow Jesus to become more like Him.
