The Enemy Within: Chapter 13

This final chapter in The Enemy Within is about the role of faith, or trusting God, in the fight all Christians face against their sinful flesh.

Lundgaard summarizes the book by saying that everything he's talked about so far--meditating on the Cross, watching out for sin, filling our emotions with heaven, using every means of grace, renewing our first love for Christ and hungering for God's glory--will not kill the flesh at the moment of temptation unless these things "are combined with faith" because faith is "the only thing that destroys the flesh" (142).

We often forget in our fight against sin that along with being my responsibility kill my raging flesh it is God's work too, as seen in this important verse: "...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil 2:12-13 ESV).

Sanctification (= becoming more holy, more like Christ) is a synergistic activity where I "work out my salvation" and God "works in" me. Also, notice that God works "both to will and to work for his good pleasure." So, the wanting to do God's will and the activity of actually doing God's will both come from God.

The parts of this chapter that help me most and gave me great comfort in my fight against sin came from two passages in Hebrews.

First, Christ is not powerless, but fully able to help me when I'm being tempted: because Jesus "suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted" (Heb 2:18 ESV). I need to believe this in the midst of temptation, and my trusting this is seen when I look to Him.

Second, I can't fight sin on my own. In fact, I deserve to be overtaken by sin every time, but when I'm being tempted I can "draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Heb 4:16 NASB).

The daily challenge I took away from this chapter is one C.J. Mahaney has modeled so well, that is, I need to "Look to Christ's death for power. ... Apply his blood to your filth. Do this every day" (147, italics in original). I know. I can take some of C.J.'s suggestions from the end of Living the Cross-Centered Life and incorporate them into my daily routine.

Also, we are not alone in our fight against sin. When your lust "grabs you by the throat" (147) remember that you have the empowering presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit who is the means by which we "put to death the misdeeds of the body" (Rom 8:13). I'm not powerless in the face of temptation, but have the omnipotent power of God in me to give victory.

In the end, it looks like each Person of the Trinity has devoted Himself to my holiness, giving me comfort and evoking praise in this on-going, life-long, never-ending battle to put sin to death in my heart and life because it's "God's pleasure not only to rescue you from hell, but to glorify you with Christ by making you like him" (149).

Therefore, the chapter and book both end with this final call: "In every victory lift your hands to heaven and give thanks--rejoice with a grateful heart in your Deliverer. He is faithful. Soli Deo gloria" (149). Amen.

The Enemy Within: Chapter 12

One of the assumptions of The Enemy Within is that if a Christian knows the schemes / methods of his "enemy" (i.e., his sinful flesh), he will have victory over it. In this chapter, Lundgaard exposes our flesh's scheme of peace, specifically that our flesh can trick us into thinking we have peace with God after we've sinned when we really don't.

This is the Christian, like me, who "when their consciences are pricked by their sin, they too quickly declare their own inner peace before God has done his work in them" (133).

When there are sins in my life that I put off dealing with, my flesh tricks me into thinking they're dealt with because "Jesus died for all your sins," or "You confessed this so move on," or "God loves me," when, deep down, my conscience is screaming "This has not been dealt with!" So, how do I respond? In the exact ways this chapter outlines.

First, I speak the gospel to myself, then think I have peace when I don't because I don't hate the sin I'm speaking the gospel to. It's a sin I really don't want to be rid of. True hatred for sin is seen when "your heart weeps with self-hatred" (136) for the offense it is against God, not for the consequences that sin brings.

Second, I gain a fake, temporary peace when I have to argue Scriptures against my feelings of guilt, and the guilt still doesn't go away. No matter what I know is true about my sin, the feeling that I'm still guilty doesn't leave because I also know I need to do more than confess and repent of my sin for the true peace to come.

In other words, I can speak the gospel to myself about the sin I've committed against a person, ask God to forgive me for the sin, commit to turning from it completely, but still not have peace. Why? Because I know true peace will only come when I confess to and ask forgiveness from that person. Only then the peace I get is peace from God.

Lundgaard writes that this kind of peace not only won't last, but it "doesn't give sweetness and contentment to the soul" and it ultimately "doesn't change your life" (138).

The peace given to the Christian after he sins is from God when it lasts. It is a peace that seasons the soul, making it sweetly rest in God. It is a peace that ignites lasting change concerning that sin.

This, and only this kind of peace has lasting effects because this is the only kind of peace that comes from God, not our own deceptive, scheming, con-man hearts.

The Enemy Within: Chapter 11 (Pt 2)

The result of studying God rightly is that He gets much larger is our vision of the world and life. Consequently, as God gets larger, we can't help but get much much smaller. In other words, we learn about ourselves by contrasting who we are with who God is.

Sadly, the seeker and emergent movements have become very adept at keeping God from their people. They exaggerate God's love to such a radical extent that the god they speak of barely resembles the God revealed in the Bible. The reason they do this, I think, is that the true God makes us feel deeply uncomfortable, which is one of the last emotions these kind of churches want people to feel.

In fact, this is the difficulty we face when we are seeking to kill our sin. Killing sin is done by seeing God. Seeing God makes us feel uncomfortable. Therefore, we don't kill our sin because we don't want to feel bad.

The decision is between killing sin in ourselves or feeling bad about ourselves. The humiliation that comes from seeing God clearly is "strong medicine" that withers and gives us hope against sin (128).

This is the reality behind 2 Corinthians 3:17 "we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another."

However, when we behold God's glory the Christian's response is to fear God. This, too, is an unwanted feeling in all human beings. However, when we avoid the fear of God we, again, keep ourselves from another means of fighting sin because "sin can't breathe in an atmosphere of fear and reverence before God. It suffocates. Can you imagine your lust cheery and prosperous when you are on your face before a holy God?" (131).

The Enemy Within: Chapter 11 (Pt 1)

Since my grandpa Hoover has cancer I am slightly familiar with the concept behind Mr. Lundgaard's opening illustration. The question: How do we fight and beat the sin in our hearts? The answer he gives is "See God." Seeing God is like chemotherapy or radiation as "the soul sees what God is like in his glory, sees what it is like in its sickness, and buries its face in the dirt. Then the healing starts. God's radiating majesty kills the rotten marrow of sin and replaces it with humility. A heart humbled by God's terrible majesty can begin its recovery and grow strong. Sin can't thrive in a humble heart" (128).

In other words, maturing Christians, Christians who are fighting sin, are Christians who study theology. They are Christians who know God. I tell my students that it's not a question of whether or not I do theology or whether or not I am a theologian. The moment you say "God is _______" you're being a theologian. Therefore, the question is not "Am I a theologian?" The question is "Am I a good one?" And "good" is measured by NOTHING else than does what I believe about God match the Bible.

Practically, this means we have to not only read but meditate--which for me means journal and blog--on the passages of the Bible that most reveal God's majesty / glory / holiness, i.e. Genesis 1-2, Exodus 3, 12-15, 19-20, 32-34, Leviticus 10-11, Deuteronomy 6-10, 28-30, Job 38-42, Psalms 93-100, Isaiah 6, 40-66, Ezekiel 1-11, Daniel 2-4, Joel, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Matthew 10, 23-25, Luke 13-14, Acts 5, Romans 1-3, 2 Corinthians 5, Hebrews 10, Revelation 2-3, 6-19, etc.

We have to spend concentrated times in these and other passages, not just skimming them to say we did it, but really slowing down, reading and thinking about the implications of what we read, even writing them down because "if we want to put sin to death in our hearts, we have to swallow the strongest doses of God's terrible majesty we can" (128).

This also means that we should be reading theology books, and if we do so rightly, these books will help us fight sin. It also means we need to go to churches where we hear sermons that glorify God in His "terrible majesty." This is the goal of preaching, to set God before people, which in turn transforms them (2 Cor 3:18).

The Enemy Within: Chapter 10 (Pt 3)

My friend and I meet once a week to talk about this book, and I gain so much from our time together. I especially look forward to how he's going to describe the interaction he has with the text as Mr. Lundgaard or Mr. Owen or both have an uncanny knack for describing the human soul's interaction with sin.

We've talked often about how white hot the love for Christ was in the days soon after being saved. Prayer came easy as we were able to focus without rabbit trails distracting us. Bible reading was a joy as new discoveries were made daily. Times at church were so rich that we looked forward to it each week. Fighting sin and hating the world came much easier. God was tangible, real, almost touchable in the things He'd do to demonstrate His existence and love.

This may be a bit of exaggeration, but this is how we remember our early days as Christians and others we've talked to agree there's a special grace God gives new converts.

When we talk, we look back longing to get back to those days because prayer is difficult, Bible study seems dry, church is routine and fighting sin is hard with God seeming far away. After interacting with the material in the previous post on The Enemy Within I can see why this happened in my life. I actually should spend a lot more time comparing those 7 buckets of ice water to my life because if I look close enough, I think all 7 would apply in one way or another to me.

And, it is the imagery of forsaking one's first love that makes me think Jesus' words from Revelation 2:4-5 are talking about people like me who remember the heights from which I have fallen with Him and need to repent, doing the things I did when I first became a Christian or face worse judgment in my life.

This is why I'm so glad chapter 10 ends with a short section on 'Falling in Love Again.' I wish it went into more detail, but the gist is that if you heed the warning of vv. 4-5 above the blessing is that fellowship will be renewed with Christ, and that you can't heed that warning without making a consorted effort to "murder the flesh" (121).

On that note, another friend of mine made a very insightful observation about pride. I want to kill my pride so much. I hate pride with a passion and the numerous ways it sneakily and obviously expresses itself. I want it dead until someone says something that wounds it. Then, I protect it with a vengeance. I should want everyone to wound my pride constantly. The more attacks the better, but I don't really or else I'd welcome criticism and confrontation in my life rather than avoiding it. Something to chew on.

The Enemy Within: Chapter 10 (Pt 2)

The Christian's sinful flesh hates God, and it knows the Christian does not. So, rather than trying to get the Christian to hate God (which is impossible), it rather "dumps seven buckets of ice water on our first love" (115).

The buckets carry ice made from seven rancid pools that form in our hearts.

1. Ice of Corrosion -- The flesh applies it's acid to our love for God by slowly, but deliberately "enticing us to lay aside spiritual duties one by one," by "making us think we can get by with a little less prayer, shorter and fewer private devotions--until he at last convinces us that ee can get along without talking to God at all" (116-7).

2. Ice of Formality -- When we must worship God, "the flesh will make our religion into a formal affair," sapping the life out of it because a religion with the fear of God coming from our entire being becomes a stench in His nostrils (116).

3. Ice of Distraction -- The flesh loves it when we're more passionate about political or social causes, music, hobbies than we are about God who "never lift their eyes about the cause to see the Christ" (117).

4. Ice of Domestication -- The flesh hates it when we hate sin so its goal is to make us think sin is no big deal, forgetting that "unrepentant and cherished sin douses the fire of first love" (117).

5. Ice of Knowledge -- Theology is not optional in the life of the believer. In fact, everyone is a theologian because everyone has something to say about God. The issue is not "Are you a theologian?" but "Are you a good one?" meaning does what you say about God match the Bible. Well, on this question for knowledge the flesh loves it when we treat the Bible like a textbook. If we're like that before God's word, leaving our time in it unchanged, the flesh has "snuffed out the wick of [our] first love" (118).

6. Ice of Independence -- If the Christian starts to sing "I Did It My Way," the flesh has drenched your first love.

7. Ice of Neglect -- The flesh will do everything to keep you from private prayer and Bible study. My favorite quote in the book: "The person who calls himself a Christian, who says he loves God, yet does not seek his company and delight in it, can't be a true lover of God. His own flesh has deceived him" (118-9). Your flesh will reason say, like mine does everyday, "you listened to that sermon," or "you sang that song," or "you watched that TV preacher," or "you did family devotions so you don't have to read and pray." Or, it will trick you into thinking "I'll pray more after the big test has past" when there's always another test another activity another thing. If you've made a habit of listening to it when it speaks, you've lost your first love.

Lundgaard ends this section with these chilling, thought-provoking, soul-searching words: "You may make a great show of love and faith at church...[but] if there is no priviate communion between you and Jesus--freqent and deep communion--then your religion is worthless. You've lost your first love. You stand at the end of Jesus' finger, aimed at your face with his threat: 'You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place (Revelation 2:4-5)'" (119-20).

Next, we'll see what we should do to rekindled the passion in our hearts for Jesus after the flesh douses it with one of these 7 ice buckets.

The Enemy Within: Chapter 10 (Pt 1)

So far, we've seen what sin is and how it works. Now, in the next couple posts, we'll see what sin does.

In chapter 7 of his gospel, Luke recounts when a women anointed Jesus' feet and dried them with her hair at the house of a Pharisee. The point of this event is given in verse 47 "For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little."

Lundgaard comments that Jesus "meant that her great love, which spilled over with tears and tenderness for him, flowed from a clear sight of how much she had wronged God, and how much he had pardoned her" (113-4).

In other words, if the flame of my love for God is going down it's because my awareness of my sin is also going down. By contrast, her "love for [Jesus] was heated white hot by this fan: a sense of how much God had freely forgiven her in Christ" (114).

Therefore, in its battle against God's Spirit in us, the flesh "dumps seven buckets of ice water on our first love" (115)...which we'll look at next time.

The Enemy Within: Chapter 9 (Pt 3)

I ended the last entry with the thought from Kris Lundgaard that every bit of "the deception and temptation we've been discussing [in previous posts] has one intent: to convince the mind that this sinful act is somehow 'good' for the soul so that the affections hunger for it, and the will chooses it" (103).

This is the scheme, the method, the procedure your flesh is working on you to do what it, not God, wants. Therefore, it fights like hell to keep you ignorant of what its doing--that's one of the reasons why true prayer and Bible study are so hard.

Now, what're some of the specific tactics the flesh uses to lie us into thinking sin is good for us?

1. Twisting Scripture -- The flesh has you focus so much on what the Bible says about God's love (cf. John 3:16; 1 John 4:8) that He becomes a doting grandfather who will always forgive, rather than a holy God who holds us accountable for our actions as an act of love.

2. Double Standards -- The flesh makes you believe you're case is special, you're sexual immorality is OK because "We love each other," and "What is marriage, but just a piece of paper?" and "If it makes me happy it can't be that bad." Your embezzlement is OK because "I can't pay my bills" or "Corporations are evil anyway" or "I deserve this for all the mistreatment."

3. Keeping You In The Dark -- The flesh fools us in the specific areas where we're ignorant of God's Word: the father who relinquishes teaching his kids the Bible (Deut 6:4-9) to the youth pastor. Therefore, study God's Word daily so that you obey the command to "find out what pleases the Lord" (Eph 5:10).

4. Don't Worry About It -- You should hate and repudiate the flesh when it whispers "This sin isn't that bad--you don't need to go to all that trouble against this little thing. Other Christians, even great saints in the Bible, have committed far more grievous sins than yours, yet God forgave them. Don't worry about it--everything will work out okay in the end" (106).

Bottom-line: What am I doing to kill this enemy within your soul? Am I apathetic to it's schemes? Do I care that it hates God and wants my actions to reflect that hatred more than anything? Am I indifferent to those treasonous desires against the Lover of my soul? Or, do I care more about the Super Bowl?

The Enemy Within: Chapter 9 (Pt 2)

Do you find yourself saying "I'm not perfect. I'll never be perfect. God knows I'm not perfect, so He can't expect me to be perfect, to be sinless, to not sin so I can cut myself some slack. Besides, it's mentally unhealthy to get down on yourself for any reason. I need to keep a high self-esteem. That's healthy. I should not get mad at myself when I sin. I should accept it."

Is that, or something like it, you? If it is, you're dead wrong, and not able to obey some obscure, but very important commands in the New Testament--commands to kill your own sin.

Since reading this book, I've taken to putting the words "mortify" in the margin next to verses on this subject. It's not complete, but this is what I have so far...

"if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live" (Rom 8:13).

"those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" (Gal 5:24).

"may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" (Gal 6:14).

"consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry" (Col 3:5).

This is the task we need to get our wills to truly believe is good, which should not be too hard for the Christian were it not for the flesh. You see, "God created the will so that it only chooses what it believes to be good for or agreeable to the soul" (103).

Keep this in mind, every bit of "the deception and temptation we've been discussing [in previous posts] has one intent: to convince the mind that this sinful act is somehow 'good' for the soul so that the affections hunger for it, and the will chooses it" (103).

That sentence is the key. That is the scheme, the method that your flesh wants you and me to be ignorant of (2 Cor 2:11). This knowledge is the first step towards being able to stand firm against them (Eph 6:11).

The Enemy Within: Chapter 9 (Pt 1)

So far, Kris Lundgaard's The Enemy Within has described the progression sin hopes to take in us.

First, it attacks our mind with deception. If we believe it, second, it captures our emotions so that we crave the sin we're being deceived with.

Third and last, if we're going to sin, our will has to say "I do." Our will, the choosing faculty in the human soul, has consented to what the mind deemed OK and the emotions desired.

If this happens, we sin.

Now, according to the Bible, when unbelievers consent to sin its "full, absolute, complete, and with deliberation...[so that] the soul plunges into sin like a ship in full sail with the wind at its back" (100). This is not true for a Christian

When a real Christian sins "there is always a secret reluctance" so that when he sins it is like "a ship sailing against the wind--the wind may be stiff or light, perhaps even hardly felt, but it is always there" (101).

Do you feel this when you're about to sin? Do you? If you don't, you may not be a Christian, or, you've trained yourself to ignore the conviction of God's Spirit and the voice of your conscience (if it's informed by God's Word) so that you're unmoved by their warnings.

Either way, you're in big trouble.

Excursus, The Enemy Within (Pt 3)

Kris Lundgaard states that "sin tries to persuade your mind to be happy with having a general aim of doing things to the glory of God, without ever considering particular ways to glorify God" (83).

If you add up all the particular drives / reasons for what you do, you'll find the overall purpose of your life, the target your whole life is shooting for, the goal every small action is trying to achieve.

For instance, in counseling we used a kid from my youth ministry days as a test case. The teacher asked me to describe as much of his behavior as I could. On the board he drew a tree and whenever I'd say a different behavior he'd draw a circle symbolizing fruit with an arrow from it with what I said about his behavior.

Then, where the root system should have been he instead drew a heart with the words "I want __________." His thesis: You complete the sentence by making a statement that describes every piece of fruit on the tree, the behavior being the fruit of his heart's desires.

In other words, there was one general desire that manifested itself in at least a dozen particular sinful behaviors. As an aside: Once you've identified that overarching desire you can now counsel them to repent of this sinful desire and replace it with one that is more godly, at which time the heart is changed.

I say all that to say, don't be satisfied with a general desire to please and glorify God. That's too vague. Seek instead to fulfill that goal, not in the macro, but in the micro--at you job, in your marriage, when you watch TV, how you dress.

What's driving you in those particular situations determines whether or not your general goal is the glory of God or not.

Chapter 8, The Enemy Within (Pt 3)

If your flesh is a fisherman using the "pleasures" of sin to lure you in and hook you, the goal in fighting sin is not to get caught.

And, if temptation is directed at your heart and gains access to it through your mind, the way we achieve our goal (of not getting caught by sin) is by guarding our hearts (Prov 4:23). In other words, "we guard most closely what we most treasure" (96), and in this case we need to most treasure our hearts.

This is a novel concept for me who, until recently, allowed every destructive, heart-assaulting danger to have access to my heart in the things that I watched and listened to. Sadly, I'd guard my baseball cards, my coin collection, my books, my car, my computer and countless other trinkets while leaving my heart totally unprotected.

I guess I started buying into the talk of a culture that devalues the most valuable (the heart, the gospel, Jesus, etc.) and highly values the least valuable (money, looks, waist size, hairdo, titles), spiritually and eternally speaking.

By allowing my heart to be enticed by these dangerous "pleasures," I was giving it objects to latch onto, to believe are desirable and necessary for my fulfillment. Rather than "setting my mind on things above" I was setting it "on earthly things" (Col 3:2), which, over time, tore my heart from Christ and attached it to His enemies.

Practically speaking, we're to train our hearts to be latched on to Christ, His beauty, His work, His Cross, God, His glory, the gospel, truth, wisdom, love for others, etc. "Daydream about how much love [Jesus] showed you as he hung naked in your place." Get worked up by these things and "see if the baits and lures of the flesh don't grow ugly and repulsive" (97). They will because this guards your heart.

As you do this, you must also keep those affections for God warm. There are cool winds blown by the flesh that put the fire for these things out. Therefore, you must "constantly stir them up" (97). I try to do this when I read my Bible. When I'm finished reading I ask "How can what I just read make me happy in God? How should these things increase my joy in God?"

You do these things and sin feels cramped and claustrophobic inside you and you heart stays guarded.

Chapter 8, The Enemy Within (Pt 2)

Your flesh hides the consequences of sin underneath the perceived pleasures of sin, like the worm or the lure hides the fishing hook.

I used to steal candy from 7-11 on almost a daily basis. I'd take orders from my friends at basketball practice, fill my pockets when the cashier wasn't looking, and run back to practice with the spoils.

The pleasure of eating the candy, and even more so the pleasure of my teammates thinking I was cool hid the hooks of a damaged character and an increasing comfort with sin from my view so that I'd chomp down on it day after day after day, that is, until the clerk caught me and told me never to come back. Funny, it's been over 15 years and I still haven't been back to that 7-11.

So, how do you know when sin's hooked you?

You know your hooked when your imagination matches the vision your flesh has of a world free of God's rule, where you can do your own thing, where you can do what you want, where your free from any interference from God, where you're the king or queen of your own life.

In other words, when "your imagination can't turn off the flesh's images of evil, you're hooked" (94).

Remember, your mind guards your soul. It's job is to judge every word, thought, idea, belief, desire as to whether or not it'll please God. When your emotions are working correctly, they "long for and cling to what the mind says is pleasing to God, and are repulsed by what angers him" (95). If it's the other way around in any given situation, you're hooked.

As I sit here, my thought is "I may think about [fill in the blank], but I'd never do it. The thought of sin comes in my mind and I don't entertain it too long. I try to fight it off quickly." This is the problem. A person doesn't do things he or she hasn't already thought about doing--even for a split second.

Be careful! If you're daydreaming about sin, you're only a small step away from being hooked.

Chapter 8, The Enemy Within (Pt 1)

Anyone who's been fishing knows that you can't drop a naked hook into the water and expect a fish to impale himself on it.

The hook "has to be decorated by a worm or a fly or a spinner or a plug...to be desirable, attractive, alluring" because the "bait doesn't just invite--it seduces" (91; italics in original).

This is what our flesh does to our emotions when it tries to hide the consequences of sin underneath it's pleasures. If we are attracted to and desire the seductions of sin, we will impale ourselves on it's consequences.

This is where your imagination comes in. Your flesh "wants you to dwell on and savor [sins] until you can't stop thinking about them, until you start plotting and scheming ways to make the fantasy a reality" (92). It succeeds "when it makes you forget or ignore or not care about the hook whose dim outline you see beneath the feathers and flash of the lure" (93).

If you begin to imagine sin as pleasurable, desirable, alluring, attractive than your emotions you're hooked because "once the [emotions] are enticed, the will soon follow with its happy consent" (93).

Excursus, The Enemy Within (Pt 2)

Our mind is the watchman. He is keeping a watchful eye on our lives for the assault of sin from our enemy the flesh.

However, he cannot see the flesh's offensive without a kind of military training. In general, this training comes from getting God's Word into your mind, but specifically, Kris Lundgaard has given us two tactics for training our minds to love God.

First, as outlined in the last post below, we train our minds by thinking hard about pleasing God, about being obedient. I try to do this daily when I journal. Second, what we'll look at here, we train our minds for battle by thinking hard against sin. These are practical steps to train your mind for battle against sin as each step weakens the flesh's grip on us.

His first step is to meditate about God's sovereignty, His lordship, His kingship. This is powerful. He is the king and every sin is an act of treason against Him. This was on Joseph's mind when he responded to Potiphar's wife's advances with "How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?" (Gen 39:9).

Next, think hard about the punishment of sin. God is very clear that He will not tolerate sin in His people when He says "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY " And again, "THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE" (Heb 10:30).

Next, meditate on the idea that every sin is committed against your all-loving, all-kind and all-gracious Father. Think about His loving actions as recorded in the Bible, and then get specific and think about His loving actions toward you. Make a list with the idea that every good thing in your life is from God (James 1:17), and then think about sinning against Him.

Next, think hard about the Cross. Again, God's love is on display, but God's hatred for sin is also on display. Paul says the result of being Cross-eyed is that we will no longer live for ourselves but for Him who died for us (2 Cor 5:15).

Finally, meditate on the fact that when you sin you grieve the Holy Spirit who lives in you, defiling His dwelling place and forfeiting His comfort. I long for His comfort and assurance and sin robs me of that.

When you do these practical steps, don't forget that your flesh hates what you're doing. Watch for his sabotage, especially his attempts to make you spiritually lazy.

This watching is not a passive exercise, or one you can hand over to an accountability partner. Each of us is commanded by God to "watch," "be alert," "beware" of sin some 20 times in the NT (Matt 6:1, 16:6, 11-12, 26:41; Mark 8:15-16, 12:38, 13:37, 14:38; Luke 11:35, 12:1, 15; Acts 20:31; 1 Cor 16:13; 1 Thess 5:6; 1 Pet 5:8; 2 John 8). The idea here is that we're "to be diligent to not be surprised and entangled by temptations" (88). Make it your job to pounce on sin before it pounces on you.

However, you know you're not watching, not ready to pounce and becoming spiritually lazy if you aren't provoked by warnings against sin, aren't motivated to do your spiritual duties (me), and are easily discouraged and give up when difficulties come. "A lazy soul realizes he'll never be perfect, so he says, 'Why bother?' and is content with spiritual deadness and apathy" (88). Does any of this describe you?

Excursus, The Enemy Within (Pt 1)

In the posts on chapter 5 (see them here and here) we talked about the flesh's tactic of deception saying when the flesh deceives you like this, “you will sin” (55). Therefore, deception's primary target in the Christian is his or her mind. If the mind is deceived, the affections are entangled and the will consent to sin (cf. James 1:14-15).

The Enemy Within has a chapter excursus at this point called "Loving God with all your Mind." In it, Kris Lundgaard takes us deeper into how to protect the mind, get it ready for actions, against sin by speaking of the mind's duties to accomplish pleasing God.

First, the mind must obey fully. The Christian life is not about how close can I get to sin without sinning (something I heard about a lot being in youth ministry for 6 years). The Christian life is about how much can I please God in EVERYTHING I do.

Second, the mind must obey by faith, so that "no duty that is acceptable to God--can be performed but by the actual working of Christ, who is our life" (82).

Third, the mind must obey from the heart, meaning "the mind must watch over the affections in every duty to God" because " a duty offered to God as an act of mind and will without the affections is abominable to God" (82).

Fourth, the mind must obey God's way so that "your mind has to make sure you do everything the way and by the means God has commanded" (82). This has so many applications, but one can be the person who gives his money at church (out of duty), but no cheerfully, which is God's way to obey.

Finally, the mind must obey God for God's goals. The overarching goal being the glory of God, making Him look wonderful, great, awesome, magnificent. If that is not the goal of our obedience "the flesh will try to slip other motivations for your obedience, such as satisfying your conscience or winning the priase of your peers" (83), which ruins your obedience.

If you do this, train and make it your mind's goal to please the Lord, you can expect three counter moves from your flesh:

First, it will try to keep your mind from being specific. This is a general desire to glorify God without seeing this as being the goal is specific, particular actions and reactions.

Second, the flesh will try to make you content with doing you duty, whatever that may be in a given situation, without really wanting to do it. Your flesh will say "You ought to read you Bible, so read your Bible. Good, now go do what you want."

Third, it will try to get you into an obedience routine, doing your duty for duties sake, and never really obeying God in a way that is acceptable to Him because it has nothing to do with any of the five points above.

Your mind is at war with your flesh. Therefore, you need to give it bullets from God's Word, and you need to watch and be mindful that the counteroffensive it's always launching against you is real and effective though it is hidden so well.

Without the light of God's Word to expose the flesh and the power of the Spirit to overcome it we will not be able to "do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor 10:31).

Chapter 7, The Enemy Within (Pt 2)

Have you ever wondered why you can watch all 9 Friday the 13th movies in one sitting (something 4 friends and I did in high school--what a colossal waste of time on awful trash!), but get instantly tired when it's time to pray? Or, you can focus like a laser beam while you track down the enemy in Halo 2 on the Xbox, but suffer from sudden onset ADHD when you sit down to read your Bible?

The reason why this happens to you & me has to do with my next question.

Have you ever tried to kill a bug that knew it was going to die? In high school we had to catch bugs and mount them on cardboard. I don't know if the bugs knew they were going to die when I put them in the "death jar" (a mayonnaise jar filled with cotton balls that were dipped in nail polish remover), but they squirmed and buzzed and writhed and thrashed about until the fumes overtook them.

The reason it's so hard to pray and read your Bible is because when you do them your flesh dies. As a result, it "resists with its last breath anything that smacks of communion with God, because [your sinful flesh] suffocates in his presence. If you draw close to God...prepare to see the flesh scratch and claw like a wounded badger" (73).

That scratching and clawing is the inability to stay awake and the inability to focus and the sudden need to clean your hairbrush or mop the kitchen floor. This is part of the war against yourself, your enemy within.

So, now that you know what it is and one of the many ways it works, it should be a little easier to fight and beat it. I know when I sit down to read my Bible, I expect to get tired, I expect to begin to read with the motive of filling my head with facts rather than filling my heart with Christ, I expect to get tired when I kneel or lay down to pray so I pray while journaling, or pray while walking, or pray standing up. What do you do?

Chapter 7, The Enemy Within (Pt 1)

The flesh's assault of the mind is so critical to fighting the battle against sin that Lundgaard devotes a second chapter to it.

Here, he summarizes that chapter by saying "The job is killing the flesh. The strength we have is the Spirit in us. And God has given us tools to finish the job" (70).

These tools are what he outlines throughout the chapter. However, before getting to them, let me say first that this is another in the long line of tragedies regarding the shallow, image and hype driven, edu-tainment church movement.

A church that does not solidly ground people in the Bible not only robs people of God, the One for whom they were made to be satisfied in, but also keeps them from having the tools to fight sin in order to enjoy Him. No Bible means no sword to fight with, and no armor to be protected by. You cannot hope to survive, let alone thrive as a Christian if you are one of those Christians who "are ignorant of the power of these tools [to fight sin] and how to use them" (70).

Enough of that soapbox. The tools to fight sin are rather simple to say, and hard to implement in our fast-paced, noisy culture. I guess that's why they're called spiritual disciplines.

These are meditation and prayer, namely, meditating on God with God, speaking to Him "as you contemplate him, humbling your soul before him, adoring and admiring him, delighting in him and giving him glory" (71-2).

Second, meditate on the Living Word (Jesus) in the Written Word (the Bible), or, study with the goal of having experiential knowledge of your Savior. Search your heart to make sure that you "never let [this] be your goal to search the Scripture to find a new insight to tickle your hunger for learning or to have something neat to share wieth your small group" (72). As a grad school student in apologetics and Bible, I often fell--and still fall--into this, and need to guard my heart against it diligently.

Finally, meditate on your self in the Word and with God, or meditate with the goal of exposing the secret desires, motivations, and schemes of your heart, "what advantages the flesh has gotten over you, what temptations it has used with success, what harm it has already caused, and what harm it still plans" (72). Ask God to "dredge up the schemes and plots of the law of sin, and drag them into the light of God's presence" (73).

Chapter 6, The Enemy Within (Pt 2)

When tempted to sin, your flesh does so with a frontal assault on your mind with the weapon of lies.

The first lie it tells you is that sin really isn't that serious, that wicked, that dangerous, that deadly. By doing so, you forget what it took to rescue you from your sin (namely, the incarnation, humiliation and death of Jesus, the perfect Son of God).

The flesh is also getting you to forget, what Lundgaard calls, the design of grace, which is to make you holy (cf. Titus 2:11-12), as well as the remedy of grace, which is pardon from God and peace with God (64-5).

By forgetting that God's grace is given to make you holy the result is thinking you have the license to "sin so that grace may abound" (Rom 6:1). You take advantage of grace by sinning because you know you'll be forgiven.

This is a lie. It is another gospel that says "You can sin, even just this once, because God will forgive you, and the price for that sin has already been paid. Live it up. Do what you want."

I've especially seen this in reformed kids who think eternal security is a license to sin as much as they want because "once saved; always saved." The books of James and 1 John have a message for them.

This person does not see the utter horror of being deceived into thinking that God's forgiveness is not earth-shattering, but common, no big deal, something He has to do when I confess.

Be very careful if this describes you.

The more you see your sin against the perfectly holy and just God of the universe the more you should hate it, not placate your throbbing conscience that 'Every Christian sins; we will until we die, so it's not serious.'

Also, the more you contemplate the Cross, the less you should think this. If you keep your eyes on the Cross, letting that be the music always playing in the background of your mind, then you will "keep the rottenness of sin and the kindness of God in mind" (66).

A final way the flesh lies to you is with the lie that the things of the world are more fun, more fulfilling, and more pleasing than God (65).

What an awful lie this is!!! The All-Sufficient One, traded in for a cheap knock-off! This is not small thing.

In fact, the Bible says this is appalling, shocking and truly evil: Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the LORD, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water (Jer 2:12-13).

Chapter 6, The Enemy Within (Pt 1)

The battle against the sin in you begins in your mind. If you loose the battle against sin there, you'll loose the battle.

Or, as Lundgaard says, if "the mind fails to identify a sin as evil, wicked, vile, and bitter, the affections will not be safe from clinging to it, nor the will from giving consent" (63).

We can see this quite clearly in the historical account of Joseph in Genesis 39:6-10. It's pretty clear from his responses to the sexual advances of Potipher's wife that his mind was fixed on the sinfulness of sin and the direction of sin, namely, that all sin is ultimately an act of treason against the authority of God.

Lundgaard concludes this opening section by explaining how Joseph's mind was filled with the goodness and grace of God, and how His kindness and love towards us is what "propels, fuels, drives us to obey" (64).

When I first became a Christian I spent a lot of time dwelling on my sin. Those early years as a Christian were, at times, miserable as I struggled with the difference between what I was before God and what I wanted to be for God.

Within the past year and a half, I've been overwhelmed with my sinfulness as God's given me a clearer picture of my wicked heart thanks to the ministry of John Piper and his talk of being satisfied in God alone. As I saw how much more satisfaction I get from stupid things like traffic opening up on the freeway than I do from God, I mourned my wickedness.

However, it wasn't very long that I began loving God more because He didn't leave me in my sin, but showed and continues to show His grace to me. There are times now when I think I'm more amazed at grace and the gospel than I did when I was first saved.

Now, this recognition and experience of God's grace in my life motivates me to expose my sin to him and others, and desire desperately not to sin against Him more. I can understand what Lundgaard is saying here because this has been my experience.