There’s a War Going On

From Adam’s Fall (Genesis chapter 3) until now there has been a war raging inside all humankind.  It is an age-old struggle between two internal entities, the spirit and the flesh. Each are in battle to win the “heart” of the soul.

Note: Body and flesh will be used in this document interchangeably]

Romans 7:22-24 King James Version

²² For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

²³ But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

²⁴ O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

You are a Trinity

You are a tripartite being – body, soul, and spirit.

1 Thessalonians 5:23 King James Version

²³ And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 4:12 King James Version

¹² For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow [body], and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Body, Soul, Spirit

After God formed Adam, he  lay on the cold earth as a clay form. There was no life in him. There was no good or evil in him. When God breathed the breath of life in him, Adam became a living soul. The breath of life embodied a soul in that clay form and the form came to life. Because Adam was made in the image of God (Genesis 1: 26-27), simultaneous to depositing a soul in the body he hard-wired your spirit in as well.

I like Clarence Larkin’s graphical depiction of the interaction between the body, soul and spirit.

The Human Body

The living, breathing house that contains your soul and spirit. It is the part of you that connects to the world through your sensors; taste, touch, smell, sight and hearing. It houses all the physiological systems that support physical life.

You were gifted with this temporary body you have now. It is a terrestrial body, a mock up (corruptible body) of the celestial body (incorruptible body) you will be transformed to if you have given your heart to Jesus Christ .

Read 1 Corinthians chapter 15 concerning the different types of bodies and the transformation to will take place from our terrestrial bodies to our celestial bodies.

The Human Soul

The soul is your personality. It is the center seat of your mind (how you think), your will (what you do),you’re your emotions (how you respond). It is what makes Marilyn Marilyn and what makes you you. If I could displace your soul from your body and put my soul there you would really be Marilyn. All your behaviors, dispositions and mannerisms would be Marilyn regardless of who the body resembles.

The soul is what was created to live eternally. The soul is the decision-maker. It can decide to allow itself to be guided by the sensory appetite of the body or garner influence from your spirit. However, if your spirit is corrupted, a data feed from either is undesirable. That’s where salvation and the infilling of the Holy Spirit comes in. Salvation denounces the world’s system and the Holy Spirit works with your spirit to reset it back to its intended settings, back to God.

The Human Spirit

The spirit placed in you is like a homing device. It consciously signals there is a supreme being to which you are ultimately subject to. The supreme being is the God and Creator spoken of in the Holy Bible. Satan’s plan over millenniums is to divert affections from the One and only God has led man’s spirit in many to make other things their gods. These substitutes can range from Satan himself to humanism, from acquiring wealth to sports fanaticism, from star-struck idolism to unbridled attention to social media. Idolatry is anything you prioritize before God. Test yourself.

1. Think of your favorite thing to do; something that consumes a lot of your time.
2. Then think of God.

Which one excites you the most?

The one that gets you excited the most is where your heart is. Your hard wire mechanism to God Almighty has been tampered with. Your wires have been diverted to love other things more than God.

I am not saying you can’t enjoy your job, sports or appreciate a good actor or artist. I am saying these things uncontrolled can take the place of God as priority. Matthew 22: 37 is how God describes one should prioritize him.

Matthew 22:37

³⁷Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

Everyone and everything else fall in line behind God. If you say, “Loving God is boring.” Then I say, you don’t know God.

The Holy Spirit

Jesus gave the gift of the Holy Spirit with salvation. Why? To help turn your spirit man back to the authentic God. The Holy Spirit’s job is to bring the ‘loose ends’ of your spirit back to God. Having the Holy Spirit dwelling within you is not an option.

Romans 8:9

⁹But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God [Holy Spirit] dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ [Holy Spirit], he is none of his.

The Holy Spirit acts as a seal until the Lord Jesus returns to resurrect or translate us to eternal life.

Ephesians 1:13

¹³In Him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the good news of your salvation, and [as a result] believed in Him, were stamped with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit [the One promised by Christ] as owned and protected [by God].

Ephesians 4:30

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God [but seek to please Him], by whom you were sealed and marked [branded as God’s own] for the day of redemption [the final deliverance from the consequences of sin].

Romans 6:19 speaks of yielding your members to sin. The members spoken of here translates to the body, soul and spirit. Sin takes entry first through the sensory components of your flesh if the soul and spirit is not in alignment with God. There is no sin when the flesh is tempted. There is sin when the flesh engages the temptation.

Romans 6:19

I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.

Acknowledging the disparity of our members (body, soul and spirit), the same scripture is calling for a reversal.

That’s where this fast comes in. We are acknowledging our shortcomings and asking the Holy Spirit to reveal to us the severity of our weaknesses.  First to bring us to a place of repentance and secondly to a place of strength to overcome such weaknesses.

If you are fasting with a partner that has your confidence, confess this weakness to them so they can stand by you in prayer.

Use the first few days or so to assess your standing with God. Then if need be, address it. You need to be in a good place with God to magnify the results of this fast.

Study

I encourage you to expand on what was presented here by studying further using other scriptural references.

John 5:39

³⁹Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

Acts 17:11

11These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.

Testimony

Even before the fast officially starts, God is moving. One of the activities I suggest is to journal. I have different journals around the house but I wanted a new one.

On the day I purposed to buy one I received a call telling me to go on my porch and retrieve a Christmas present from my niece in Connecticut, 600 miles away.

I went out and opened the gift bag seeing some very nice decorative items for the house. But to my surprise my niece had included a journal with my rhinestone studded initial on it! Wow! Isn’t that just like God? He answers even my thoughts!

As you fast, share with me what God is doing in your life!