Battle Against Self

One of the most difficult battles that we as Christians fight is against ourselves. Sometimes we are our own worst enemies.

When we think about this battle that goes on inside us, we might think about the old cartoons you'd see with an angel on one shoulder telling the character to do the good thing and a devil on the other telling him he should look out only for himself and do the bad thing.

1 Cor 9

²⁶Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. ²⁷No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

Paul speaks pretty directly about this problem in

Romans 7

¹⁴We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
²¹So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²²For in my inner being I delight in God's law; ²³but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. ²⁴What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

This is a somewhat confusing speech by Paul. What it boils down to is that Paul is talking about this battle that happens in each of us. Good vs. evil. What the sinful nature wants for us vs. what God wants for us. I'm sure all of us have felt this. I meant to put in an honest day's work but I wasted time. I meant to avoid bad influences and yet I allowed them into my life. Paul talks about this evil that is within us. By our nature, all of us without exception are slaves to sin. But there is a way out of that slavery...Jesus Christ.

Jesus talked a great deal about this battle inside of us. For example, in the issue of greed.

Mat 6

²²"The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. ²³But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
²⁴"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

When you're learning to snowboard, you learn that wherever you look is where you go. Your balance follows your eyes. The eye is the lamp of the body. If you're just learning how to snowboard and someone is skiing beside you and you look at them, as much as you may not want to crash into them, you may end up looking at them and crashing into them anyway. As I've gotten better at snowboarding, I can somewhat look at something without heading in that direction. But you still find yourself moving in that direction even if it's very slight. Likewise, in our Christian lives, we can think that we're old hat at this stuff and think that we can withstand temptation to the point where we place ourselves in situations that are too much for us. The devil is cunning in this way. And so we may think we are strong enough to resist, we sometimes aren't and may find ourselves veering in a direction we didn't anticipate. Jesus says that you can only serve one master or the other. In this case, he was talking about serving God or serving money, but it could apply to anything we go head over heels for.

One thing we learn from the bible is where to place the blame for all of this

Temptation comes from ourselves...

James 1

¹³When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; ¹⁴but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. ¹⁵Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
¹⁶Don't be deceived, my dear brothers. ¹⁷Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. ¹⁸He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

So apparently, there might be this thinking that goes, “God is all-powerful. God is in control. It must be God that is tempting me. Perhaps I can even use that as my excuse for sinning.” But James makes the point that it's not God. It's us. And there is a progression to it. Our evil desire tempts us to desire what we shouldn't. That desire leads to sin and sin leads to death. God is the author of good. Through the bible, God has caused people to be good who might have done so otherwise because he has given us an understanding of what is good and why we should do it. He doesn't break his promises. He has promised that if we will follow Christ then we'll have eternal life.

We can see an example of people losing this battle against themselves in the Pharisees. We look in the old testament God was talking to Moses and he said this...

Numbers 15
³⁸ "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'Throughout the generations to come you are to make tassels on the corners of your garments, with a blue cord on each tassel. ³⁹ You will have these tassels to look at and so you will remember all the commands of the LORD , that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by going after the lusts of your own hearts and eyes. ⁴⁰ Then you will remember to obey all my commands and will be consecrated to your God.

So the Israelites were to have special tassels to give them a reminder to follow God so that they wouldn't be drawn away from their own lusts. Sort of like tying something around your finger or writing something on your hand to remind you of something. Ok, seems like a good idea.

Similarly, when God tells Moses to pass his commands on to the people and tells them this....

Deut 6

⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

So here's another custom that God gives the people with the intention that it will strengthen them. He tells them to tie his commands to their hands and bind them to their foreheads as a symbol. This also seemed like it would work. You can't as easily forget God's word when you have it on your forehead.

What eventually happens with these customs?

Jesus says about the Pharisees, the descendants of those who were told to do these things...

Mat 23

⁵"Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long;

A phylactery is the little box containing scriptures on the forehead and arm as God originally told them in the old testament.

So, ironically, the Pharisees turn these customs into a contest to see who can have the best and longest tassels and the largest scriptures on their forehead. They take the very thing that was supposed to remind them to battle against evil within themselves and they use it wrongly as a display of pride. Jesus criticizes them for missing the point, which they do. They allowed their pride to overcome themselves.

Pride

As with the Pharisees, pride can be a problem for anyone. Wanting to be better than the other person. Wanting to put yourself over the other person. Jesus and the apostles often warned against this.

...continuing in

Matthew 23
¹¹The greatest among you will be your servant. ¹²For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
¹³"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.

The Pharisees had the word of God. They may often have known what was right, but they couldn't resist putting their bit of pride into it. They couldn't resist trying to lift themselves above each other. So Jesus brings this teaching. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled. It was exactly what the Pharisees needed to hear.

Habits...

How often do you find yourself struggling over and over against the same sin? Perhaps it is laziness and distraction. Myself, I get easily distracted and I have to make a new effort every day to remain focused on what I need to do that day. How much do I bring this upon myself? How much do I put myself into situations where I'll be distracted? These are the questions I need to ask. How much do I have to do with my own problems?

Jesus often talked about our behavior coming from our hearts

Mark 7

²⁰He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' ²¹For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, ²²greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. ²³All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.' "

God cannot have his full effect on us if we have rocky impenetrable hearts. If we insist on just keeping back this little part of ourselves from God to do what we want instead. Our commitment to God has to be complete.

The Pharisees and Sadducees refused to give themselves completely to God to the extent that Jesus warned his disciples about them.

Matthew 16
⁶"Be careful," Jesus said to them. "Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees."

Change Yourself

So, the only way to make these battles against ourselves easier is to change our hearts. So, the answer is, “oh, that's easy. Just change who you are.” Well, it's not easy. It takes work to change ourselves from what our worldly part wants.

Jesus has some pretty extreme-sounding advice about what to do if we do find sin in our hearts.

Mark 9

⁴³If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. ⁴⁵And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. ⁴⁷And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, ⁴⁸where
   " 'their worm does not die,
       and the fire is not quenched.'

This could be summed up by saying, “whatever you need to do to keep yourself from sinning, do it. Avoid situations that cause you to sin...no matter how precious they may have become to you.”

You remember we read earlier about our evil desires leading to sin which leads to death. Now we'll look at the opposite.

Peter talks about the eight step program to staying a steadfast Christian. The plan starts with Jesus.

2 Peter 1

³His [Jesus'] divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. ⁴Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
⁵For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; ⁶and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; ⁷and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. ⁸For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.

So what do these many steps Peter talks about lead to? Love. If you love your brother, you won't treat him badly. This gets rid of a whole range of sins. You won't try to lift yourself up over your brother. You'll help him when he's down and so on.

I think Peter is right to talk about this as a path. If you were to go up to a gangster and tell him he should love his brother, he's not going to do it. You can't just tell someone to feel love for someone else and have them do it. They have to change in their heart first and then they will want to love others.

Division in Yourself

Jesus said

Mat 12

²⁵Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.

Jesus was saying this in reference to someone accusing him of driving out demons by Beelzebub. But it also pertains to what we are talking about. If you are of two minds about things, you cannot stand. If you claim to be a good Christian but you steal things when the boss isn't looking, you aren't standing as a Christian.

1 John 2

⁹Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness.

And so the conclusion of the things we've read is that you must work on your heart if you want to win the battle against yourself. You have to strengthen your heart with God's word, avoid putting yourself into situations that tempt you.

Of course, this path begins with Christ.