PUT FLESHLY LUSTS TO DEATH

Christian and WorldlinessPut FleshlyLusts to DeathPrabhudas koshyTherefore, brethren, we are debtors, not tothe flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye liveafter the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye throughthe Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body,ye shall live. For as many as are led by theSpirit of God, they are the sons of God. Forye have not received the spirit of bondageagain to fear; but ye have received the Spiritof adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.The Spirit itself beareth witness with ourspirit, that we are the children of God: And ifchildren, then heirs; heirs of God, and jointheirswith Christ; if so be that we suffer withhim, that we may be also glorified together.Romans 8:12-17We Owe the FleshNo Sympathy (Fightagainst the flesh)Some Christians seem to take a very gentleattitude towards sin as though they owetheir own fleshly desires some sympathy andtolerance. They think that since they are stillin their corrupt body and prone to the lust ofthe flesh, they must be tolerant and permitsome space for sin to exist. But Paul says inverse 12 that Christians do not owe the fleshanything. You have to understand that fleshlylusts must be hated. It’s been trying to killyou. Peter warned us in 1 Peter 2:11 that wemust “abstain from fleshly lusts, which waragainst the soul.” Giving in to the flesh is likejoining forces with your enemy and pay foryour own destruction. You are not a debtorto the flesh.Until you believe that your Christian life is anactive warfare against fleshly lusts that laywait for your soul, you will probably take aneasy approach to your Christian life with noearnestness and vigilance. You got to havea wartime mindset; if not, your life is veryprecarious. The enemy has lulled you intosleep or into a peacetime mentality, as ifnothing serious is at stake. And God, in HisBible Witness 11

Christian and Worldlinessmercy, has led you to read this article to wakeyou up and enlist you to fight a good fight.Be prepared for an aggressive, ‘no-mercy’approach to your sins. Read what Jesus has said,“Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee,cut them off, and cast them from thee:it is better forthee to enterinto life halt ormaimed, ratherthan having twohands or two feet tobe cast into everlastingfire. And if thine eyeoffend thee, pluck itout, and cast it fromthee: it is better forthee to enter into lifewith one eye, ratherthan having twoeyes to becast intohell fire”(Matthew 18:8-9). Itis a picture of the most radical kind of assaulton our own sin. The Lord is calling you toconsider the vanity of entertaining the fleshlylusts, for they will soon give you a deadly blow.So He says cut off your hand or your foot ifyou must keep it from stumbling your soul.You deal aggressively with your sins, not thesins of others.Jesus’ words call for very intense self-control.You don’t let the flesh call the shots. You musthave all the passions of your body and mindunder control. You take them captive anddecapitate them.There is something about war that sharpensthe senses . . . You hear a twig snap or therustling of leaves and you are in an attackmode. Someone coughs and you are readyto pull the trigger. Even after days of little orno sleep, war keeps us vigilant.So make no peace with yourears, eyes, tongue, hands andfeet. They will betray you likeJudas who betrayed ourLord. If you allow themto control your life,you are permittingthem to make waron your soul. Put todeath the sinful deedsof your body.The only way ofobtaining self-controlis by engaging yourselfin an all-out war againstevery out-of-control desire.Self-control is a declarationof all-out war!Self-control is a total attack against all theimpulses in us that would be destroyingour spiritual pursuit. It is a quick slaughterof all the impulses in our own selves thatwould make peace with our own sin andsettle in with a peacetime mentality. It is theimmediate crushing of every unwholesomecraving. Kill right away the thoughts about thepraise of men, fame and power, love for moremoney, temptations towards pornography,craving for more than food and drinks, desirefor sensual satisfaction, etc. It is an absolutesnubbing of every violent passion such as anger,jealousy, envy, unforgiveness, impatience, etc.It is also a total eradication of a sluggish orindifferent spirit towards spiritual and moralobligations.12Bible Witness

Christian and WorldlinessChristianity is war. It is war on our own sinfulimpulses. Christianity is not a ‘settled-in’ and‘live-at-peace’ with this world and our lust kindof religion. Romans 6:12 commands us, “Letnot sin therefore reign in your mortal body,that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.” Asimilar call is found in Romans 6:6, “Knowingthis, that our old man is crucified with him,that the body of sin might be destroyed, thathenceforth we should not serve sin.”Christianity is crucifixion of our old self andnew life in Christ. Our old self was crucifiedin order that our body of sin might be doneaway with! When Christ died, He broke thepower of sin. We can kill sin because Christhas died to give us victory over sin. Now thatour old self is crucified with Christ, we canmortify fleshly lusts. The Christian life is nota moral self-improvement, but the killing ofsin, and living in the Spirit.We Owe the Spirit OurConformity (Fight alongwith the Spirit)Now he continues in verse 13, “For if ye liveafter the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye throughthe Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body,ye shall live.” You don’t owe the flesh anything,but you owe the Spirit of God everything. Heis going to make you alive in the resurrection(verse 11), and even now, you can only havevictory over your sins “by the Spirit”. Throughthe Spirit, you can put to death the deeds ofthe body. You owe your final resurrection lifeto the Spirit (verse 11); and the perseveranceyou need to make it to the resurrection as abeliever in war with sin, you owe to the Spirit.If you try to survive as a Christian in any wayother than “by the Spirit”, you will not survive.You will die. This threat is real. The Scripturesdemand that you fight to kill the fleshly lustsby yielding to the Spirit of God whom Christhas given you.How Can You Kill Sinthrough the Spirit?Step One: Set Your Mind onthe Things of the SpiritNotice Romans 8:5-6 and how Paul speaksof the flesh and the Spirit (the same pair hecontrasts here in verse 13): “For to be carnallyminded is death; but to be spiritually mindedis life and peace” (Romans 8:6). For the mindset on the flesh is death (as verse 13a says), butthe mind set on the Spirit is life and peace (asverse 13b says). So the first step in the answeris this: putting to death the deeds of the bodyby the Spirit involves “setting the mind on thethings of the Spirit”. You don’t just look at thetemptation and say “No”. But if you are goingto put it to death by the Spirit, you have to domore: you direct your mind, your heart, yourspiritual focus another way, namely to the“things of the Spirit”. So when you refuse lust,you right away engage in spiritual activitiesthat the Spirit wants you to do.Step Two: Set Your Mind on theWord of God and all It CommandsWhat are “the things of the Spirit”? If ourminds and hearts are going to be riveted onthem in the hour of temptation so as to killsin, what should we be looking at? Here thekey text is 1 Corinthians 2:13-14 where Paultalks about his own teaching as God-inspiredwords. This is the only other place in the NewTestament where the very phrase “things ofthe Spirit” is used. He speaks of his revelationslike this: “Which things also we speak, not inthe words which man’s wisdom teacheth,but which the Holy Ghost teacheth. . . . (v.13). But the natural man receiveth not theBible Witness 13

Christian and Worldlinessthings of the Spirit of God: for theyare foolishness unto him: neithercan he know them, because they arespiritually discerned.”So here “the things of the Spirit” arethe words of God spoken by theapostles. From this, I infer that whenRomans 8:5 says “they that are afterthe Spirit the things of the Spirit”, hemeans that they set their minds onthe words of God and the realitiesthey stand for. These are the“things of the Spirit” that thenatural person rejects andthe spiritual person embraces.So to put to death thedeeds of the body“by the Spirit” isto “set yourmind onthe thingsof the Spirit”,which we nowunderstand tomean the wordsof God, andall that theyprescribe.This is especially significant because the “wordof God” is called “the sword of the Spirit” inEphesians 6:17. And swords are used for killing.So we are to kill the deeds of the body by theSpirit: by fixing our mind on “the things ofthe Spirit”, by welcoming and embracing the“word of God” in our minds. Let us, therefore,mortify the lust of our flesh by wielding thesword of the Spirit which is the deadly swordfor sin-killing. •Whilelove forthe worldweakensthe soul’slove for God;love for theWord revivesthe soul’slove for Godand mortifiesits love forthe world.14Bible Witness