So a month ago, you promised yourself you would spend more time in prayer each day. Or you would read your Bible more consistently. You were all excited when you first began. But now you find it hard sticking to your plan.
This struggle comes from your flesh. “That can’t be true; I am a Christian,” you say. As I said, this struggle comes from your flesh.
Our spirit has been born again from above. But we are still clothed in corruptible flesh. That will remain the case until the Lord returns and changes our flesh from corruptible to incorruptible (see 1 Corinthians 15:53).
Prior to His crucifixion, Jesus went to the garden at Gethsemane to pray. He told His disciples who were with Him to watch His back as He prayed. When He came to check on them, they had fallen asleep.
Then He said to them, “Watch and pray, that ye enter not in temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41). These words of Jesus are not to be reduced to some religious cliché’. Rather, they convey a profound reality for every Christian.
The last church I pastored started in my home. On Friday nights, our small group came together to pray. The goal was to pray together for an hour. But long before we made it to an hour, some members of the small group had fallen asleep in whatever prayer position they were in. We reduced the goal to forty-five minutes. Still, they could not go the distance. We finally scaled back to 30 minutes.
What was the problem? An hour is not excessive for corporate prayer. As Christians, we have been born again. Our renewed spirit desires to pursue the heart of God. Accordingly, I believe the members desired to pray through as I had asked them to. But they failed to do so because of the weakness of their flesh.
Choosing to Follow the Spirit
It is a given for us that the flesh is weak. We can’t change that. We must learn how to thrive within that reality. In any situation we face, we can do one of two things. We can succumb to the weakness of our flesh. Or we can obey the willingness of our spirit to do what pleases God. The latter scenario is how God intends for us to live.
In Paul the apostle’s letter to the church at Galatia, he writes about this tug of war between our flesh and our spirit. “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh,” he wrote (Galatians 5:16, NASB).
In this life, we will always have desires in our flesh. No level of spiritual growth can deliver us from that reality. The human flesh will always be a source of weakness. But according to this verse, we don’t have to fulfill our fleshly desires. We can choose instead to follow the quiet voice and awesome power of the Holy Spirit within us.
That’s in effect what Jesus was telling His disciples in the garden. “Pray,” He said. Your flesh is weak. But your spirit is willing.
You don’t go by how you feel. Even during times of extreme physical, mental or emotional weakness, the Lord’s Spirit within you is 100% ready to go with God. Also note that Jesus underscored the importance of prayer in this matter. Prayer strengthens us. It ushers in God’s help. His strength is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).
Believe that you always have more than enough to stand strong amid temptation when you are prayerful and have Christ living in you through His Spirit.
Copyright © 2022 by Frank King. All rights reserved.