“O wretched man that I am!” (Rom. 7:24) Those words, exclaimed in exasperation by the Apostle Paul, followed a deep look into his soul and self after which he exclaimed: “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) there dwelleth no good thing.” (Rom. 7:18)
Every human being has been created in the image of God, that is, with a mind with which to know Him, a heart with which to love Him, and a will with which to serve Him. I call these the mental, volitional, and emotional capacities of man. When Adam and Eve sinned, all of our inner-most being—our capacities cited above—were deadened, darkened, and depraved by the blight of sin’s corruptive influence. (Rom. 1) So we—our core being—cannot, apart from the regenerative power of God through the new birth, know, love, or serve God as we were created to do. In salvation, we receive a “new nature,” being made “a new creature” in Christ Jesus, (2 Cor. 5:17) so that we can know Him, love Him, and serve Him as we were intended to do as originally created.
Therefore, mankind has always had a “self” problem to deal with. Even after our new-birth experience, as Paul writes so graphically in Romans 7, we have a daily struggle between the “old man” and the “new man.” When we were saved by grace through faith, the old, fallen nature was not reformed, nor was it eradicated; we were, though, given a new nature, unspoiled and unspotted by sin. As we yield to the Holy Spirit, walking in the Spirit, we will please God; but whenever we yield to the “flesh/old nature,” we will be walking in the flesh, and in that condition we cannot please God no matter what we do. (Gal. 5:16-26) Paul confessed that, often, what he would not do, he found himself doing; and what he would do, he too often found himself not doing. This self-struggle caused him frustration and exasperation, and he finally cried out: “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24) He answered his own question in the next breath by affirming: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom. 7:25)
So, how are you coping with that daily inner warfare of which Paul spake? Victory is possible, but only through the power of the indwelling Spirit of Christ. Struggling to please God in the power of our inner self will prove without exception fruitless.
The Old Testament record of Jacob’s life illustrates this struggle, though he lived before the time when the Holy Spirit was given to indwell every believer. Jacob’s life began in a literal struggle: The Scripture conveys that, at birth, when his elder twin Esau was being delivered from Rebekah’s womb, Jacob grabbed ahold of Esau’s heel. From that point on, for the next many years, there would be self-struggle between these sons of the patriarch, Isaac. Jacob (the name means “supplanter”) would connive to cheat Esau out of his coveted “birthright,” and later his even more coveted first-born blessing. This struggle eventuated in Esau’s vow to kill Jacob; in Jacob’s leaving his home country for 20 years, where he would continue to struggle with his father-in-law, Laban, over women and wages; and his move back to Beer-Sheba, when he would have a tense reunion with Esau and God would, for the second amazing time, appear to Jacob, instructing him that he would be the recipient of incalculable blessings, both material and spiritual, by the grace of God. In this second appearance at Bethel, God told the supplanter that the name change from Jacob to Israel that he had informed Jacob of in Genesis 28 would now “stick,” and that he would be called and known as “Israel-prince with God.” Jacob’s struggle lasted decades before God’s plans and purposes for Jacob’s life were believed and acted upon by this father of 12 sons. (Gen. 35)
The struggle with self is universal and ongoing. Some of the names given for it are: Self-absorbed, self-confident, self-destructive, self-denial, self-abasing, self-pity, and many other names assigned to the abnormal behavioral characteristics rooted in the fruit of self, left to itself.
Ancient philosophers urged disciples to “know thyself,” but the Bible says the heart (core of self) is desperately wicked and “who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9)
Almost every aberrant behavioral trait can be traced to a problem with self; and every problem with self will find its origin in the fall of mankind into sin on one of earth’s earliest days. Subtle Satan deceived Eden’s sole occupants into believing that to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would make them wise, like God. They bought into that lie, and pride—the sin of which Lucifer, the Devil, was taken down by when he was an archangel—took down our first parents and, along with them, the human race. Satan, centuries later, would pull that same ploy out of his bag of dirty tricks and, in a wilderness, would tempt Jesus, weakened by 40 days and nights of fasting, with the pride factor: “Cast thyself down if you are the Son of God and your Father will ‘give His angels charge concerning Thee: and in their hands they shall bear Thee up, lest at any time Thou dash Thy foot against a stone.’” (Matt. 4:6) Jesus said to Satan: “It is written again, ‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’” Jesus 2, Satan 0. Satan got blanked out, as he could not successfully get Jesus to sin in three tries—failing again when he promised Jesus the kingdoms of the world.
But we deal with this self issue every day. Our young people are struggling, as recent peaks in teen suicides have shown. The whole world lies in the lap of the wicked one (I John 5:19), and if the Devil will succeed in destroying your life here and/or hereafter, he will do so by appealing to your inner self.
Be filled with God’s Holy Spirit. Like our first parents, you are no match for the wicked one. He is the master deceiver. There can be victory over Satan and self—but only by faith and, moment by moment, yielding to God’s Spirit and not to your self.
“So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” (Romans 8: 8,9)
YOU and GOD 