“The War Within”
“No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.”
1 Corinthians 10:13 NASBS
Christian reader do not be bewildered by the struggles endured during your pilgrimage here on earth. Though your stay here is short in comparison to eternity, you will have to weather the storms of affliction because of the nature of sin and the character of your flesh. Therefore, it should be no surprise that when God created saving faith in you and filled you with His Spirit, the expression of His perfect law abides in you. Not that you must fulfill the requirements of the law externally, for that is impossible, but that you have fulfilled them spiritually through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Listen carefully to what the Apostle says to the church in Rome, “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that we, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit, might fulfill the requirement of the Law.” So then, Christian, you are now the temple of the Living God, and His expressed character lives in you through His Spirit. He—the Holy Spirit that resides in you—is purging you of all remaining wickedness and the residue of sin that is in your body. And you, because of the holiness of God that has made His abode in you, are now in conflict with sin that is in your fleshly body. Therefore Christian, gird yourself with holy violence against all the things in your life that oppose His truth and do not for one moment allow sin to get a foothold in the areas that once mastered you.
So then, beloved, remove the notion that you will float to heaven on a bed of ease or that through some miraculous deliverance you will escape the fiery trials in this life, for it is not so. Just as the authenticity of gold is proven through a heated furnace, so too, the authenticity of every Christian is proven through the furnace of affliction and the various trials of this life. Rest assured, O man, if God is in you—the Hope of glory—then you will long to bring Him glory through your deepest affections by stamping sin out of your life, which will automatically bring you into the holy war that will rage between your flesh and the Holy Spirit that lives inside of you. You must understand that in this battle, the position you stand in at this very moment is being justified by Christ in the eyes of the Father, and that can never be taken away from you. You have been seated with Christ in the heavenly places. But the freedom you seek in this earthly body can only be found when you contend with the sin in the members of your body that are waging war against your heart and mind.
You must prepare, Christian, for you do not know the hour when the temptations of this fallen world will seek to lead you astray; it is then you must unsheathe the sword of God’s word and be ready to fight a rigorous battle.
And always remember beloved, “No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.”