Story Published:
May 16, 2010 at 8:27 PM CST
Story Updated:
May 16, 2010 at 8:27 PM CST
In 1 Peter 2:11 we read, “Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against your soul.” Most of the time we associate lusts with a certain type of sin, but Biblically speaking, lust is any strong desire. Any desire that would cause you to choose it over the will of the Lord.
It’s interesting that Peter said these war against our soul. In the Bible, the soul is made up of the mind, the will, and the emotions of man. The core of the soul is the will of man. It is the part of man that in sovereign while he is on the earth. Man has free choice to do as he pleases. He can choose to serve God or serve sin.
The enemy of mankind is always warring against our mind. Even though our enemy, Satan, lives in the realm of the spirit, he knows that the battleground of the Christian is the mind.
The writer of Hebrews says something similar in Hebrews 12:3, “For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinner against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. (4) Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.” Our enemy desires to cause us to faint in our mind, to say, “I just can’t take it any more.” To say, “It’s too hard.”
When we faint in our minds, our will to continue on with the Lord is destroyed and we will not press into the will of God with the same zeal as before. Usually it’s not a 100% failure. Maybe we just don’t read as much, pray as much, go to church as much. It’s rare to see Christians defeated entirely, but when we simply blend in with the world, the end result is the same… the will of our Father is frustrated.
The verses in Hebrews, though, are telling us more than we realize. They say that Jesus had to resist sin to point of sweating drops of blood – a reference to Jesus in the garden before his crucifixion. The writer says we’ve not gone that far, but if we don’t know the whole story, we’ll just say, “Yea, but that was Jesus. He had the ability to do that.”
The secret weapon in our lives, however, is that we have the same Holy Ghost in us that Jesus had in Him… no difference. The greatest power in the universe lives in our hearts. Paul tells us in Eph 3:16, “That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might in the inner man.” That word “might” is the supernatural, miracle working power of God. I pray Eph 3:16 for myself on a regular basis. When I am strong in my inner man, in my spirit, I will never faint.
The Lord has equipped us with the intent of total victory in our lives. There are no thoughts, no trials, no enemies we cannot overcome. There is no past so great or so dark, that our infinitely strong spirit cannot forget. We can always live on top. We never have to fear again. We never have to be sad or depressed again. We have all that we need already to win the victory. We only have to believe.
