THE BATTLE OF THE AGES

 

“This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.” (Galatians 5:16-17)

Romans 7:18-24 (ESV) then says, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

Let me state something clearly and straight-forward - The Battle of the Ages is not somewhere out in the world. It is not a battle in some far-off, distant country. It not a battle within the local church. No! It is the battle that is fought within me, and it is the battle fought within you!

Listen carefully to this truth today. The devil is not my, or your, worst enemy! The world is not my worst enemy! People are not my worst enemy! No! …

I Am My Own Worst Enemy! and You Are Your Own Worst Enemy!

It is time we quit playing the blame game. It's time we grew up in the maturity of the Word, and in our walk with the Lord, and stop blaming everyone else for our problems. We love to blame the devil for our problems. We have that Flip Wilson kind of Christian life, it seems, where every time we do something that shouldn't have, we yell, “The devil made me do it!” So much so, we have tended to give the devil more credit in our church services many times than we have the Lord God of Hosts!

Yes, sometimes it is an attack by the forces of darkness against us, there's no doubt about it. But other times it is nothing but our own fault for making stupid decisions. We must mature enough that at least we can be man enough, or woman enough, to accept our own mistakes, failures and shortcomings. We need to understand that there is a war raging within us between flesh and spirit; darkness and light, good vs. evil; and quit blaming everyone and everything else for our problems!

We can, and we will, have victory though! Because, “Greater is He that is within us, then he that is in the world!” And on that note, we can be confident that we will win the battles that rage within us. This time, the next time, and the time after that!