Scripture Text: "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 5:17 (KJV)
 |
| Image Credit: Magnific |
DEVOTIONAL
Every believer eventually discovers a war they did not enlist for. You want to pray, but your flesh wants to sleep. You want to forgive, but your flesh wants to nurse the offense. You want to walk in purity, but your flesh keeps pulling toward what it has always known. This is not a sign that something is wrong with you — it is Scripture describing exactly what happens the moment the Spirit of God comes to live inside a person still wearing an old nature.
Related Post: The God Nature!
Understand this — the flesh Paul speaks of is not merely the physical body. It is the godless human nature: the old pattern of thinking, desiring and reacting that operates independent of God. It does not consult heaven. It does not wait on the Spirit. It simply wants what it wants, and it wants it now.
Before the new birth, this godless nature ruled unopposed. There was no internal resistance because there was no Spirit present to resist it. But the moment you were born again, God planted His own life within you, and that life will not sit quietly while the old nature runs the house. The war in Galatians 5:17 is proof that you have been genuinely changed — the Spirit would not fight a nature that used to control you unless He now had legal ground to oppose it.
Think of two rivers flowing in opposite directions through the same channel. There will always be turbulence where they meet. That turbulence is not defeat — it is contact. The believer who feels this pull is not failing at Christianity; he is experiencing exactly what Paul described to the Galatian church two thousand years ago.
The danger is not the presence of this war. The danger is assuming you have no say in who wins it. Paul does not leave believers stranded at verse seventeen. A few verses later, he gives the weapon: "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16).
The flesh is not defeated by willpower gritted through clenched teeth. It is starved by continually yielding to the Spirit — in your thoughts, your words, your reactions, your private moments.
Read: The Yoke of Slavery!
Every day presents a choice at the crossroads of this conflict: feed the old nature through compromise, idle thoughts and careless company, or feed the new nature through the Word, prayer and obedience. Whichever one you feed will grow stronger. Whichever one you starve will weaken.
You are not fighting to become spiritual. You are enforcing, moment by moment, the nature that Christ already gave you over the one He came to dethrone.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
1. In what specific area of my life is the tension between flesh and Spirit strongest right now?
2. Am I feeding my old nature more than I am feeding the new one God placed within me?
3. What would change in my daily choices if I truly walked in the Spirit rather than reacted in the flesh?
PRAYER KEY POINTS
Father, IJN: Thank You for the new nature You have placed within me through Christ.
Father, IJN: Strengthen me by Your Spirit to starve the flesh and walk in obedience to You.
Father, IJN: Help me recognize the pull of my old nature quickly, and give me grace to yield to You instead. Amen.
FURTHER BIBLE READING
Romans 7:15-25, Romans 8:1-13, Galatians 5:16-25, Ephesians 4:22-24, Colossians 3:9-10
COMMIT TO MEMORY
"Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." — Galatians 5:16 (KJV)
ASSIGNMENT
Today, identify one specific way you have been feeding your old nature. Replace it deliberately with one act of yielding to the Spirit;
- A prayer,
- A scripture,
- An act of obedience — before the day ends.
The war between flesh and Spirit will not end by accident. It ends daily, one surrendered choice at a time.
Follow Our Social Handles