People in the church make the mistake of trying to do away with the fact that man is an animal. He is not a plant or a mineral which should be obvious. Man is flesh, bone and biology. Man is highly influenced by biochemicals: His hormones. Yet people in the church still want to try to argue that man is a spirit and by virtue of that he is automatically holy. This is not the case, holiness does not come naturally. We have a wicked fleshly body in addition to a soul, because most of the things we desire to do naturally are wrong. The fact that the words “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” came from the mouth of God should be evidence enough of the fact that man is constantly battling his earthly body.
“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” & “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
Galatians 5:16 & 19-21
“For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”
Romans 8:6
There are moments in the life of man where it seems as if he loses all mental control and becomes solely flesh.
He becomes purely an animal and his soul is sidelined. Fits of rage, crimes of passion, lust of the flesh are examples of this phenomenon.
We cannot sit in our comfortable pews and deny the fact that the body of man is still heavily influenced by his biology. While we can put forth our best effort to rule over our body with our mind and morality, this does not magically take away our inclination to do what appeals to the flesh.
Animals rip one another apart and have sex at will without thinking about it. They do what is most likely to perpetuate their survival. We as men cannot behave that way. We must control our biology. We must be completely unnatural in almost everything we do – God requires this of us.
Do not murder other men.
Avoid sex with women who are not your wife.
Reject gluttony.
Through these simple, difficult and anti-natural actions we sharpen our mind and harden our discipline.
We must convert our natural drives and biology into a constructive energy that allows us to build and improve our lives rather than destroy and break them down.
We must focus those fits of rage into focused exercise. We must turn that desire for sex into a desire to build our business, do better work and to be more successful, because these things are what bring more sex (at least for a worldly man, but we can still hijack the sex drive to do good work). Through focused effort, we can flip the switch and use the same emotions to take positive action rather than negative action.
Mantra
I am rejecting the animalistic inclinations of my flesh.
Application
There are generally consequences that follow them when men behave like animals. Men take horrific action motivated by chemical reactions in the brain and must then suffer the consequences. We must master our emotions and gain a greater control over our body.
This flesh wants to do everything that we should avoid as Christian men. We have to rule over the flesh with an iron fist. Beat the body into submission everyday. So many men make the mistake of letting the body rule over the mind, we must do the opposite. We must rule over the flesh. The flesh never makes a mistake until the mind is fatigued and allows the mistake to happen. Therefore, we must keep the mind fresh at all times.
We cannot rest the mind, for in that moment the flesh will take over us. We must always be vigilant and aware of what is going on in our bodies and see to it that our biology does not affect what is going on in our minds.
Tactic I – Mindfulness
- Detach from yourself and view your biological drives and desires as if you were a scientist looking at a test subject. Examine your various oddities, habits and cravings and note them.
- Trace your desires back to their very root. Ask yourself why you want to act on a particular craving. Once you have the answer to that question, you must ask yourself, “Why” again. Continue asking until you find the source of your desire?
- Contemplate the various consequences if you act on any of your desires, and at the same time visualize where your life would be and how successful you could become if you would redirect those energies into productive pursuits.
- Unleash pent up emotion and desire into productive outlets such as training, business, music or writing.
Command your flesh.
Force yourself into discipline.
Conduct yourselves like men.
