Your Battle With Your Body – Part One
Romans 12: 1 & 2
Jesus took upon Himself a body in order to do the will of God the Father. We must yield our bodies to Jesus in order for Him to continue to accomplish the will of the Father through us.
Think about that! Take a look at your body. It is intended to be a tool in the hand of God with which He does His work just as a hoe or shovel is in the hand of a gardener. Your body is intended to be an instrument in God’s hand with which He achieves His purpose just as a scalpel is in the hand of a surgeon.
In order to understand the spiritual application of this, let’s establish the fact that you do have to battle with your body. As proof of this, pause to remember how you have to battle with it every morning when it is time to get up. What a struggle!
One dear friend told me she used to have to set three alarm clocks to get up in the morning. One was close to the bed. Another set for a few minutes later was placed just out of reach from the bed. A third placed beyond the range of the second was set for a few minutes later. I can envision this person literally crawling out of bed. It’s a battle.
Your body fights back and resists every effort to get started. Your mind says it is time to get started but your body argues. It protests and resists physically.
This is no less true in the spiritual realm. Your mind and spirit desire to do a certain thing and behave in a biblical way, but your obstinate body protests. The body has certain interests and appetites which it craves and demands. A battle results.
Will you concede that you lose some of your biggest spiritual battles because your body wins over the spirit? The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Consider these biblical insights regarding your body.
“…do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
We need to pray as Paul that “Christ will be magnified in my body” (Phil. 1:20).
“And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God” (Romans 6:13).
Inventory the members of your body. Which members afford you the greatest opposition in spiritual warfare? Give God every member. Give Him your hands, eyes, ears, reproductive organs, legs, stomach, and mind. There is victory in surrender.