February WOW: Part 2

Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...

Thanks for joining me for a coffee break and Part 2 of our WOW. Grab your coffee and let’s look at these words again so we can taste what we are about to chew on! 

“I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary to one another so that you do not do the things that you wish.” Galatians 5:6-7

When I read these two verses, I automatically think of a fight, a sort of dueling going on, a power struggle of sorts and sometimes we all know those sorts of struggles can be as relentless as two champion boxers in a ring aiming for just the right punch to score the most points while inflicting harm and trying to take the opponent, that's us, out.

That may seem strongly harsh to you, but when it comes to the battle of the flesh and the Spirit, sometimes it can feel much like a fight. I think the power of that fight is intensified when we fight with just our physical self, or with our physical and emotional parts.

See, what we tend to forget is that the body is made up of three parts -- (interestingly enough, the Trinity comes to mind: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit): the mind=emotions + body=physical + soul=spiritual.

In Genesis we read: “God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Just as God is Triune, made of three parts, so we are made up of three parts. But why do we tend to leave the spiritual part behind in bed after making it and going on with our day? How many times do we do things without putting our spiritual part into the equation? How many decisions do we make without doing what is spiritual and praying, seeking after the things of God and praying to Him for guidance? Why do we feed our physical selves all sorts of food, and a lot of bad food, feed our emotions all sorts of leisure reading and negative music, watch movies with no moral message, but we do little to feed the spiritual self?

Going about our day without acknowledging our spirit, which is how His Spirit communes with us, within us, is like a car with three wheels, a ship without a captain, and can be as disastrous as a plane without a pilot! The good news is that we could avoid disaster by feeding our spirit with the things of God. The crazy economy of Christ, though, is that even if we don’t, He will use our mistakes, our tug-of-wars to refine us, purify us that we may be more like Him and less like our struggles.

Paul explicitly confirms this division of parts in 1st Thessalonians 5:23: “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (NASB)
There are many examples in the Word of God that refer to our flesh as “tents of flesh.” When I think of a “tent,” I think of camping, which is never something I would do on a permanent basis! :) Therefore, our flesh is a temporary dwelling place that houses the emotional and spiritual parts. In other words, our bodies are sort of the physical container that holds the emotional and spiritual beings until we get to our permanent dwelling place, eternity. (See 1st Corinthians 5:1)
Could it be that we engage in so many tug-of-wars because we come to the tug-of-war in our flesh, without our spirit?

Join me tomorrow for some real-life tug-of-wars.

Letting go and letting Him,
Evinda