You might not even notice it, but it shows up when you see the speed limit sign and you go faster. Or the thought comes to not be transparent about making a mistake at work. Instead, you entertain the thought of deflecting blame on others or not being completely honest about the situation. We have all felt the pull of that kind of self-protective action.
Many of us have had goals toward which we were working and have fallen short. The struggle within us to do things that are right and to fall short of them, or to avoid doing things that are wrong and end up doing them anyway is a conflict that all humans experience in one way or another. It is in our nature.
One experience many believers face is on Sunday mornings. We wake up, thinking we “should” go to church, yet our body feels heavy and our soul is sluggish. We lay in bed and end up not going to church or decide to watch church online. If this becomes a habit, over time, our spiritual lives lack vitality. We notice that we have lost our joy. Reading the Bible and praying become drudgery and our lives feel flat and disengaged.
I have experienced that resistance at times in my walk with Christ. Weeknight Bible studies can be especially challenging to get motivated to attend. However, every time I have chosen to go, I was glad that I went. The same has happened on Sunday mornings. I wake feeling worn out emotionally and physically. But after being in fellowship, hearing the Word taught, and worshipping with others, I come home refreshed in spirit.
From an objective point of view, where do you think those feelings and thoughts about not wanting to go to a meeting come from? Given the result that we are usually strengthened and encouraged in our faith, what do you think is working to hold us back from going?
Two Sources of Resistance
The resistance in those circumstances comes from two sources. The first source is our flesh, or sin nature. It is constantly battling to avoid God. In Galatians 5:17, Paul wrote that our earthly nature is working in opposition to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The flesh desires its own satisfaction. The flesh pushes back against our desire to know God because it makes the flesh uncomfortable.
The second source of the resistance is from the spiritual realm where the enemy of our souls, Satan is committed to disrupting our spiritual lives. Ephesians 6:12 says that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual powers of this age. Their main ally is our sin nature that has been susceptible to their subtle deception since the Garden of Eden.
Our sin nature is against us growing in God’s grace. It wants to indulge in worldly pleasures. It lusts for human approval. Satan is delighted when he can disrupt our lives through drawing us away through our sinful nature (see James 1:14).
Choosing Whose Approval We Seek
The story of King Saul in 1 Samuel is the story of a man who is more interested in the approval of human beings than he was in pleasing God. 1 Samuel chapters 9-15 tell Saul’s story from the events that led to his being anointed king to the time when God rejected him as king.
Two instances in particular highlight the lesson that our flesh desires acceptance from the world rather than from God. When God directed Saul to destroy the Amalekites, Saul chose to not obey God, then blamed his men for wanting to keep the best of the Amalekites for plunder. He chose to let his men have plunder rather than to lead them in obedience to God’s command, 1 Samuel 15:1-23.
The second event that shows Saul’s heart came after God rejected him as king. In verses 30-31, Saul asked Samuel to honor him in front of the elders of the people even though God had just rejected his rule over the nation. Saul was more concerned about how humans viewed him than he was about how God viewed him.
Just like Saul, we choose our priorities. We can choose God’s favor, or we can choose the acceptance and praise of this world. There are consequences to whatever we choose.
We all have the capacity to make choices that gratify the fleshly nature. We give in to the lure of recognition, pleasure, or anything that gratifies our earthly desires. Proverbs 14:12 (CSB) says, “There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way to death.” When we fail to recognize the waywardness of our flesh and give in to its motivations and desires, we sacrifice a much greater joy and fulfillment that is available to us by learning to live in God’s Spirit.
Walking in the Spirit
Walking in the Spirit is not about fulfilling a list of requirements. It is about making choices in life that facilitate our spiritual growth. There are things we can choose that open our lives to the love and presence of the Father. When we opt not to do those things, our spiritual lives suffer. God is not going to whip us into submission. Force is not His way, neither is it His way to guilt trip us into “obedience.” The Father’s way is the gentle wooing and pinpoint conviction of the Holy Spirit in our lives. His is the way of self-sacrificing love that always works for our eternal good and benefit.
Finding spiritual vitality in Christ is not about obeying a list of activities or requirements. Living a vital life in Christ involves cultivating a relationship through the spiritual union that began when we first placed our faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ. That relationship is not fostered by going to church because we “have to.” Nor does it grow by reading the Bible or doing anything out of a sense of obligation. The relationship is built like any relationship, by spending time with the Person with whom we want relationship. When we come to a place of desiring to know God intimately and personally, we have crossed the threshold of dos and don’ts into the realm of loving Him for who He is and being grateful for all He has done for us.
The Path of Discipleship
So how do we battle this inner conflict? It comes down to our choices. In fact, our choices are the central focus of the battle in which we are engaged. This is why Paul wrote that if we walk in the Spirit, we will not fulfill the desires of the flesh (Galatians 5:16-18). When the Holy Spirit guides our choices regarding what we let into our lives via our eye gates and ear gates, we empower ourselves with the ability to follow the Holy Spirit. This is why we are encouraged to guard our hearts and minds (Proverbs 4:23-27). Everything we let in influences our thought process and the decisions we make.
In our culture, it is easy to let things into our minds that sway us away from following the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Life in this world works hard to break us. Many of us do not realize the extent to which we have been broken. Our need for Jesus is deep and compelling. We can try to anesthetize ourselves with alcohol, drugs, porn, social media, or anything else that draws our attention from our pain. But we only climb out of those broken places in our lives by the grace of God as we choose to be transformed as we build on the foundation of faith in Jesus. We engage in activities that foster the transformation not out of obligation, but out of love, gratitude, and a desire to know God and His purpose for our lives.
Coming to Christ does not mean all the destructive habits we developed in our lives miraculously disappear. There are reasons Christ’s followers were called disciples. The root idea of a disciple is someone who does not just learn from a teacher intellectually. The disciple adopts the teacher’s lifestyle. They learn the teacher’s ways, receive instruction, and accept the discipline of a loving teacher.
Being a disciple of Christ means learning to say no to the nature within us that always attempts to move us away from fellowship with God. Being a disciple of Jesus means we recognize the appeal of the world around us, but we make choices that create spiritual growth in our lives.
In my book, The Stranger’s Conflict, I talk about where this conflict comes from and how God has made provision for us to live a life of victory in Him as we battle to live lives of significance. A free chapter is available on my website.
https://www.bradchurch.com/stranger.
I was recently on a podcast called Unspoken with Aggie Park. Click here to check it out.
If you have questions or comments, feel free to reach out to me at connect@bradchurch.com
