The path to peace leads inward. Inner Conflict Management isn’t about learning a set of techniques, it’s about developing a way of life.
Things in life attempt to knock you “off of your square” because it’s in the things that you incorporate as routine that you find the most room to stretch, grow, move. Paradoxicaly, it's also the source of your confinement.
Routine is the intellectual space of your boxed activities, the “I do” drawn from your “I can”.
This morning, propelled by these thoughts, I meditated and prayed. Doing both: inner reflections, musings, weaving with conversation. Questions, some unwanted, answers, some unbidden, flowing in and out, touching, hanging, fleeing.
Slowing. Things. Down.
Self-mortification, what is it? It’s the “I” dying daily. But where some preach crucifying of self, Paul helps us to understand the process.
So then, brothers and sisters, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh (for if you live according to the flesh, you will die), but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God. (Rom 8:12-14 NET)
This is pretty important stuff because it’s tied to one of my favorite promises.
Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of God. (Mat 5:9 NKJV)
My thoughts looped around in this direction because my heart’s desire, my hope, is to be a peacemaker. Hard to do with so much conflict on the inside, though. Meditating on these things bought these two particular pieces of scripture into focus.
The sons of God are peacemakers because they have put to death the deeds of the body.
Self mortification isn’t about seeing the body, the flesh nature, as bad, but understanding it as evil. You may say, "Brother, you have just gone off on the deep end. What’s the difference?"
Bad describes the condition of an object. It’s often good for little or nothing. Evil describes the disposition of a being capable of action. This one has chosen to oppose the sovereign will of God, and this is because of self-will. The body or flesh-nature is opposed to God, and why is that important in this conversation anyway?
In Romans 7, Paul helps us to understand that evil stems from both the reality and principle of sin - the desire for self action and rule based upon our own sense of right and wrong (and indifference). For the renewed believer, there is constant warfare between the new, developing enlightenment of the spiritual mind and the fault-filled, base nature of the natural man, or the flesh aka the carnal mind. The flesh-state is energized by the reality and affect (pronounced a (as in bad) -fect = persistent recurring impactful events) of sin’s existence. Paul states that the flesh-state is one of death (leading to operational separation from the zoe or God-energized-life) but goes on to state that there is an answer. The flesh-state - the willful desires and parody of life of an individual un-energized by the presence and power of God - is weak to answer the problem of personal evil (the unregenerated thought process which still operates in antithesis to the will of God and is an enemy of the state of God's presence), and is essentially impotent versus the influence of sin.
In short, we can not merely will our faults and sinful nature away, because we are bound by a law that is at least as strong (and most likely stronger than) the Law of Fire which burns regardless of our will concerning the matter: no matter how we plead or beg or wish otherwise, without concern of law passed or decree uttered, fire burns. So, then, only a Creator-Law can overcome a Universal-Law (sin is sin, just like fire is fire, regardless of where or who you are).
The “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.” Free from the penalty of such. Free from the power of such. In short, the sin reality is dead (for me), the sin affect is powerless (against me) when I accept the liberty granted by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
Why, then, do I still sin?
“To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” (Rom 8:6 NKJV)
Because the sin principle is still alive and kicking. My irrepressible flesh-nature still wants to do things “my way.” Burger King is still open for business but we have to decide whether it will receive any business. If we decide to allow it, then the carnal-mind - the flesh-nature, enabled by the lack of vitality of the spirit man - will drive traffic and produce evil. We must re-direct that traffic by a process called the renewal of the mind.
Let's talk more about this in Path to Peace 2 - Living the Divine Will.
Originally posted 10/18/18
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