(A)

WHY THE CONSTANT INWARD BATTLE
As we seek to follow the Lord Jesus as his disciples, we find a constant inward battle within us to delight in Him and in his Word (commandments) – Scripture actually has much to say about this and our appreciation and understanding of what is revealed in Scripture can go a long way in helping us to persevere in our walk with God despite encountering this inward battle again and again.

When the Holy Spirit changes and renews the heart by instilling in us a recognition of Christ’s reality and by uniting us to Him in His risen life, our way of thinking is at once altered. Instead of active alienation from and defiance of God, what comes from our hearts is grateful love of God and a desire to praise and please him.
However, the sinful dynamics of our fallen makeup still operates within us, and incessantly pull against the God-trusting, God-loving, God-serving disposition and motivation that the Spirit has implanted (although it may be just a seed that is implanted which may not be seen and manifested in all its fullness as yet). Scripture tells us that what “is already” is still “not yet” – although we have been ‘born again’, we are still not perfect – and the process of sanctification takes a life-time until the Lord Jesus comes again and grants us resurrection in HIm with a new immortal body (which is holy and ‘perfected’).

The apostle Paul wrote: “The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Galatians 5:17).

Sometimes our knowledge of what we should do is overwhelmed by desire to do something else; and again and again we do the right thing in a sluggish, resentful, apathetic, self-pitying, self-absorbed, or self-seeking spirit with hearts having no deep concern about either the glory of God or the good of others. This happens, not because godly motivation was never there, but because the down-drag of sin in our system has, for the time being, swamped it. We constantly need, therefore, to be asking God to enable us to do the right things in the right way (with love and hope and zeal for God), and only the Holy Spirit who indwells us can bring that about. The Spirit is the One who can nurture and cultivate “delight in God and in His Word” and grant us the power to constantly overcome the inward battle within us, helping us from “inside out” to be transformed more and more into the image of Christ.

But we need to know that this is not just a once and for all victory. As we live in this fallen world with the down-drag of sin in our system, there would be a constant struggle within us – hence repentance is a way of life in our pilgrimage in this world as we travel towards the ultimate “promised land”. Hence John the apostle tells us that if we say we have no sin, we are lying – we will still sin and there is always forgiveness if we confess our sins before Him (1 John 1:9). But John also said that those who are ‘born again’ do not habitually sin as a way of life. We are not perfect here on earth, but we can rest in the Spirit to enable us, as we cooperate with Him, to make steady, sometimes slow, progress in the journey towards holiness and ‘perfection’ which only comes about in the culmination of God’s eternal plan of salvation.

Some of us with physical, emotional difficulties (which include neurodiverse problems like Autism Spectrum Disorder, partial or complete blindness, deafness, and the like) may find the inward battle more difficult and intense when compared to others, and we wish that all these difficulties will go away, and our struggles will be resolved. We feel that the recurring problems we face are duly caused by these deficiencies; but the fact is that even for those without such deficiencies, the struggles would continue – the ‘problem’ would recur and the inward battle continues until we see the Lord face to face.

We need to affirm that we face formidable enemies: the devil, the flesh, and the world (the negative worldly influences, the lusts of the eyes, the flesh, and the pride of life). Hence it is naive to think that these ‘enemies’ will be completely routed once and for all in our life on earth.
In the book Zechariah, in the Old Testament, this truth is illustrated in Zechariah 3:3-6: – ‘Now Joshua (the high priest) was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. The angel said to those who were standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes.’ Then he said to Joshua, ‘See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put fine garments on you.’ Then I said, ‘put a clean turban on his head.’ (vv.3-5a). Even the high priest was not without sin before God.

In the New Testament, we read:
“l found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. …..For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me” (Romans 7:10-12, 15-17).

So we see that the inward battle continues in our lives even as believers, even in those in leadership; the drag-down of sin in our system continues to overwhelm the positive desire to do what is right before God. The spiritual war has been won by Jesus; but the battles and skirmishes carry on, and there can be ‘injuries’ but we must not allow the ‘injuries’ to cause us to despair, and to give up and to abandon our faith and trust in God. Victory is ours in Christ, but the final victory would be celebrated by all true believers when the bridegroom comes for the bride.

We have said previously that renewed thinking and reasoning is part of our homage to God; however, if all attention is centered on doing the things that Christian reason directs us to do, and the question of how we do it is ignored, as if performance is all that matters, then it can safely be said that reason is being overvalued. We may even end up being legalistic and judgmental. But God is sovereign and He knows the intensity of the struggles we face here on earth; and He loves us as His children, even when we do fail again and again, and He continues to love us, correct us, and bring us continually back to the fold. Scripture tells us that even nursing mothers may forget their babies, but God never forgets us; He is always good, loving, merciful and caring – and He would continue to lead us home as long as we continue to cling to Him in trust and obedience.

(B)

HOLY HUMBLE HEROISM
There is a sort of resolute perseverance (in the practice of stoicism) – such a perseverance is based on self-sufficiency and stiff upper lips – it sees it as beneath human dignity to give way to feelings of sorrow, pain, grief, regret, or any kind of hurt – it advocates that if you regularly act as if you do not feel distress, you will progressively become the sort of person who does not feel it.
There is a sort of heroism in this ideal; but it is the perverse heroism of self-sufficient, self-glorifying pride – it is the opposite extreme from the obedient, dependent heroism of Jesus, the perfect man, who “offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence” (Hebrews 5:7). Yet he ended his prayer in Gethsemane facing the fact that he was not to be saved from death, and accepting the fact as the good will of the Father.

Accordingly, Jesus walked straight into the jaws of death,and “learned obedience” – that is, learned both the practice and the cost of it – “through what he suffered” (Heb. 5:8). He was shamed, and scourged, and he died on the cross, in an agony that felt like agony every moment until the ordeal was over.

Holy endurance of this Christlike sort is an expression not of pride but of humility; not of defiant self-reliance, but of ready obedience; not of the tight-lipped fatalism in a bleak, uncaring universe, but of resolute, though often-pained and aching, submission to a loving Lord, of whom it has been truly said,
“Christ leads me through no darker rooms than he went through before”.This is true heroism – a holy humble kind, fueled by love for the Father and for mankind, manifested in obedience and submission to the will of the Father (before the creation of the world, the Triune God has decided to implement the eternal salvation for fallen humanity, which otherwise would be condemned to eternal darkness and hell).
The Father appointed the Son (Jesus) to become incarnate and – as prophet, priest, and king – to mediate salvation to a great multitude of sinners. He did this through his atoning death in humiliation on the cross, his exaltation from the grave (resurrection) to the glory of the celestial throne (ascension), and his joining the Father in sending the Holy Spirit to bring salvation home to blinded and twisted human hearts. The Son, in heroic, holy, loving, and humble obedience, uttered, “Not my will but thy will be done”, knowing full well the pain, agony, suffering awaiting him at the cross, and the terrible ‘God-forsakenness’ he has to endure when he carried the weight of the sin of all generations on his shoulders until it is “finished”, accompanied by the cry, “My God, my God, why have thou forsaken me?”
This is, and always will be, true holy humble heroism displayed by the God-Man, for all to see and wonder, and for all his followers and disciples to emulate, as they follow the path of the Master in love for God, and for fellow-men.