Through his death on the cross Jesus Christ not only readjusts a man in conscience and heart to God, he does something grander, he imparts to him the power to do all God wants, he presences him with divinity, the Holy Spirit, so that he is garrisoned from within, and enabled to live without blame before God.
~Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)
For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His great might that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
~ paul, The Least of The Apostles, in Ephesians 1
Oh beloved it is true. There is within us a force so strong, so gross, and so overwhelming as to seem invincible. It is too near to be sensed except by its whiny stench and foul impulses. It would be easier to deal with a rabid, giant monkey on our back, because we could perhaps fling that beast away.
But the beast is us.
And before we know Him, we actually seem to want to believe that this is some sort of a good thing. We try to go out and grab everything we want from this existence in the world which we call life (though existence is actually far from real Life). The famous poem by William Ernest Henley (1849-1903), Invictus, states the state of our unknowing fallenness.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
The beast. This flesh in reckless control of a soul Designed to Live instead in the image of its Creator, is alive within us. And it is alive until it is slain by the power of the Spirit who does invade us as we look to the One (read only One) who can save us. And still, even from the position of being broken and in retreat, the flesh screams its wants and waxes large in our senses. Too large to ignore or control.
Nearly every religious model of thought, works desperately to approach the issue of our selfish flesh. Early Islam spoke of Jihad as the desperate fight to bring the flesh under control, supported by five huge pillars of piety. Buddhism exerts multitudinous layers of thought to bring about an emptying of self – to bring it to annihilation – that it may no more ruin us and those around us. Hinduism posits nearly innumerable sub-deities which array themselves to fix us and help us into obedience. Others surround our fallenness with layers upon layers of fence-like rules to contain an untamable animal.
None of it works. We all know it.
And this is very good news.
What?
Yeah.
The very fact that it is impossible to tame the flesh – in fact the reason why it is so potent – is to point us to something beyond ourselves for help. For only in becoming disillusioned with both the failures of the flesh, and its utter lack of capacity to redeem itself can we come to the edge of victory. And His Word then takes us all the way to The Way.
Can we see it? The power required to overcome the flesh is described in the passage above. The power to kill the flesh (that selfish self within us) is equal to the power to raise a Man from the dead as an eternally alive spiritual man. And nothing (read no thing) will ever have that kind of power. The only place power like that resides is in the Author of power Himself – in the joyous and ever-Loving arms of The L_RD of Hosts.
In this, we see that the Gospel is not just some sort of good news about a hero loving us enough to die for our foolish, wicked sins. No, the Gospel is the very good news that we can indeed (and indeed must) abandon any hope that any of our efforts or models or trying will overcome the beast within. The Gospel is a call to abandon efforts to overcome an undefeatable foe, and cast ourselves into the arms of the only One who can.
So, are you struggling against your flesh? You can’t win. Are you disappointed that the flesh keeps whining. Don’t be. The power of the flesh only points us to the overwhelming power available to a believer. For those of us who have tasted even moments of freedom, have tasted Him and the ages to come wherein death and evil and self are finally and utterly defeated.
Tonight is your night beloved. Time to surrender even the idea that you can beat your flesh. Time to allow the only One who can, to do it in you and through you. Taste and see.
Bless all who worship thee, from the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same. Of thy goodness, give us; with thy love, inspire us; by thy spirit, guide us; by thy power, protect us; in thy mercy, receive us now and always. The splendor, the love, and the strength of God be upon us.
~C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
