THE STRUGGLES OF PRAYER
I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 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. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. (Romans 7:21-25)
There is no better illustration in all of Scripture of the conflict between our spirits and flesh than the Apostle Paul’s divinely inspired words in Romans 7:21-25. Here, we are clearly shown how the physical can pose quite a problem when it comes to the spiritual discipline of prayer.
According to Paul, his “inward man”; that is, his reborn spirit, delighted “in the law of God.” His reborn spirit, just like yours and mine, wanted to do what God wanted him to. Paul’s problem, however, was that his “flesh”; that is, his fallen body with its fallen senses and understanding, was waging war against his spirit and “bringing [him] into captivity to the law of sin.” As a result of this struggle, Paul found himself not doing the “good” his reborn spirit desired to do, but the “evil” his flesh kept dragging him into. His fallen body’s seeming upper hand over his reborn spirit was so grievous to the great Apostle that he cried out, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
In Paul’s day, the corpse of a murderer’s victim was often strapped to the murderer’s back. As the corpse decayed and rotted the murderer became diseased and died. This most cruel means of execution was what Paul alluded to when he asked, “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Paul saw his flesh, in particularly his fallen body, as something he was strapped with in this fallen world. To him, the corruptible body to which he was tied in this corruptible world not only subjected him to disease and death, but was also detrimental to his spiritual life, constantly hindering and hampering him from living in the Spirit. Is there any wonder then that Paul concluded the seventh chapter of Romans by thanking God that someday he would be delivered from “the body of this death through Jesus Christ our Lord”?
Until that glorious day comes when we shall exchange these fallen bodies, which are mortal and corruptible, for glorified bodies, which will be immortal and incorruptible, we are to exercise and strengthen our spiritual senses, while disciplining and denying our physical ones. This way, our spirits will not fall victim to the tyranny of the flesh and our flesh will have minimal mastery over our spirits.
“If we find the Spirit weak and the flesh strong, we are to disable it by fasting and watchfulness in prayer…we are to implore the aid and assistance of God’s Spirit, whereby we may be strengthened and enabled to subdue and mortify the lusts of the flesh, which rebel and fight against our souls…But if instead of mortifying and taming the flesh and the lusts thereof, we pamper them like epicures with all voluptuous delights; we shall but strengthen our enemies to cut our own throats…this servant, which we should use as a slave, [will] at length [become] a tyrannous lord and master which will bind us hand and foot in the fetters of sin…What folly therefore is it to nourish and arm our enemy to our own destruction." (John Downame)
Don Walton
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