The War Between Our Flesh and Our Soul

Hello friends and family! I just wanted to come on here again and share what the Lord has been leading me through while in Vietnam. We had a Bible study time recently where we created a space for the team to come together as a body but just spend time with the Lord and allow Him to lead you where He wants to take you. He put 1 Peter on my heart and as I tried to remember and think back to what was in that book, I couldn’t really remember much so I knew it was going to be the perfect book to read. I got to this verse, 1 Peter 2:11, “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” And Peter sort of says this and just swiftly moves on with the sentence but I was like hold on there is actually so much in that to break down. I mean it all makes pretty good sense on the surface but I knew there had to be something deeper to help it hit just a little more. First thing I did was define the word “abstain.” I knew that it meant to stay away from but I was curious if I was missing anything, here’s what I found. Abstain: restraining oneself from doing or enjoying something. Yup, that was it, the word “enjoy.” So there are passions that our flesh has that go against our soul and we are to not only restrain ourselves from giving into them, but Peter is saying to actually stop ourselves from even finding enjoyment in them. How can we do that? Through the refining fire that is Jesus Christ. When we become more like Jesus, and we ask him to make us new, we die to our flesh, and the more your flesh dies, the more you look like Jesus, and the less you will enjoy those fleshly passions.

The next word I looked at was “war.” And when I read this word, I asked myself, when you think of war, what comes to your mind. For me, two things are true no matter what: 1. There will be death 2. There will be a winner and a loser. So if there are two things at war here, our flesh and our soul, there are also two things that are true, there will be death and there will be a winner, and ultimately it’s on you to decide. Are you going to give into the passions of your flesh, killing your soul, or are you going to continue fighting that war ultimately having victory in your soul?

This isn’t some one-time war either, this is a war we fight our entire lives, never ceasing. When we die, that’s when it ends. When we run into the arms of our father and he says, “well done my good and faithful servant.” There are times when we want to give up, when it seems like we are fighting a losing battle but Jesus has already won the battle. We can find comfort in him. He tells us, “my yoke is easy.” Are you willing though? Are you willing to give up your own yoke, the yoke of the enemy, say no to the spirit of laziness, of comfortability, of the things of this world, and yes to the Lord? Are you willing to keep fighting the war that your flesh is waging against your soul?

I’m really excited to be sharing this with you all because this truly did give me so much more confidence and motivation to not give up when things seem to not be going right. I pray for everyone back home every day. You all mean so much to me and I hope to hear from you soon!

(P.S. we leave Vietnam in 5 days)