Overcoming Temptation
So many Christians who want to live a holy life surrendered to God, find themselves in an impossible situation, where, no matter how hard they try to live a holy life, they cannot succeed. They find themselves crying out to God, along with the Apostle Paul, “Oh wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death.” (Romans 7: 24). If that is you I believe you will benefit from reading this article. If it is the first time you have heard anything like what this article says, then it will be hard to understand. Pray about it.
If on the other hand you have never experienced what the apostle Paul says in Romans chapter seven, then it probably won’t benefit you by reading it, apart from it being information that will be difficult to follow.
So, what is the answer to this dilemma? What can we do?
Well it is going to involve changing the way we think. The mind will have to be renewed. Things which seem to be the opposite of how we should proceed, will be the way forward. The question is, are we open enough to listen and willing enough to receive a new way forward?
I suggest you read Romans chapter seven first, before we proceed.
The Difference Between The Flesh, Sin and Sins.
First we need an explanation concerning the Bibles definition of the flesh, of sin, and of sins.
We are all familiar with what the flesh is, the skin covering our body. However it can also be used to define all mankind, even all living creatures. It can also be used as a name for the carnal state of man compared to the spiritual state and also it has been used as a name for our human nature. Joseph Prince said, “To be born of the flesh is to be born of human effort, To walk after the flesh means to walk after human effort, the more you try the worse it is.” In other words works of the flesh are to bring about what we believe is required of us by our effort (flesh demands effort). Now sin abides in the flesh, so when we want to please God the flesh demands more effort, while God asks for faith. Sin abides in the flesh, which is sometimes called the sinful nature (In this case when we are talking about the sinful nature we are not talking about the body).
So what is sin? Basically it is missing the mark. However in the New Testament, when we talk about sin (singular), we are talking about a controlling power residing in the flesh. W. E. Vine in his book, Expository Dictionary of Bible Words, gives one of the definitions of sin as, “An organised power, acting through the members of the body.” This is the definition we are using when talking about the sinful nature.
Sins (plural) on the other hand are the actual sinful deeds of the body that the power of sin is pushing our body to perform.
I will just explain that this power of sin entered our flesh when Adam sinned. The Bible says that whoever you choose to obey, his slave you are. We are the slaves to sin because Adam chose to obey the serpent, that is, the devil, when he ate of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. However when we received Jesus as our Saviour, we are set free from sin because our “old man” died with Christ on the cross and the power of sin in the flesh was rendered inoperative. Sin controlled the “old man”, but now, the old man is dead and buried so “sin” lost it’s power over us. However, as the law was given to the old man, if we still try to live by the law, then we will fail and sin shall once more be strengthened to have it’s way with us once again.
The Problem Paul Found as Seen in Romans Chapter Seven.
One statement Paul makes which we tend to skip over as it seems a bit weird, is found in verse 17 and 20 of Romans chapter 7. But first we need to read verse 21 which says, “I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good.” So we are talking about a person who wants to do good, their desire is to do good and please the Lord. However there is a law present, the more he tries to do good, the more he is overcome by evil. This is someone who wants to do good, not someone who wants to please self and enjoy the pleasures of life. There has to be a hearts desire, to be holy and please God. The problem is we go about it the wrong way, we try to do good and are overcome by evil. It is a law in operation.
What then is the root cause when a Christian commits sins? Our actions and feelings are a result of the mind, that is, our thoughts, but it goes back even further than the mind. The root cause that causes us to commit sins, is this power, residing in the flesh called “sin” (some call it the sinful nature to distinguish it from our sinful actions). This “sin” in the flesh, is a doorway for the enemy to put sinful thoughts into our minds. To try to overcome by our own strength and ability is only feeding it, making it more powerful.
The statement in verse 17 and 20 that often gets overlooked, says, “But now, it is no longer I that do it but sin that dwells within me.” Paul is talking about the power of sin that dwells in the flesh. It is this power that is causing his flesh to commit sins and not himself. Paul is seeing himself as born of God and that which is born of God cannot sin (1 John 3:9). Paul renounces those sins which he is committing as not being from him but from sin in his flesh. He is separating himself from the sins that sin in the flesh has committed. Can we say, with any conviction, “It is not I that is sinning but sin that dwells within me?”
The reason we keep trying to live a good life and failing is because our mind needs renewing from the belief that it is by our own effort that we can achieve a holy life. It will never happen. Yes we might have times when we seem at last to be doing well only to fail once again, just when we thought we had done it. That is because of the law that is present within us, which is, when we determine to do good, evil takes over and we commit sins.
You see, that is the whole point, we are determined to do something in order to be what God says we are, i.e., righteous, in other words we don’t believe what God says and we struggle to achieve it ourselves and the result is failure. So the first thing is to stop trying to achieve it, and instead believe what God says we are. Meditate on it, believe it. When we believe it, then confess it out loud. While ever we are trying to achieve by the arm of the flesh what God has already given us as a gift (Romans 5: 17-19), we are making it impossible to be what God says we are. How can the flesh subdue the flesh? The more we exercise the flesh in trying to live right, the stronger the flesh becomes. God says we are dead to sin, but we don’t think it is right to confess that until we no longer sin. However, God says. “Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:11). It is not something we have to achieve but what God says we are in Christ. We receive it by faith. Our confession has nothing to do with how we see ourselves, but what God says about us. I must stress that first we must believe that we are what God calls us and not what the devil calls us, or even what we ourselves see us to be.
Joseph Prince says we need to confess “I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.” (see 2 Corinthians 5:21). Not just when we are feeling righteous but when we don’t feel righteous, especially when we are sinning. It is what God says we are, if we deny that, we are saying that God is wrong. For freedom from sin we need to believe and confess, “I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.”
The Belt of Truth.
Now we are moving into spiritual warfare, the second we stand on God’s word, the enemy will attack to undermine us. We have put on the whole armour of God and need to move forward in the truth against all that the enemy is throwing at us. Once we have the belt of truth round our loins we must move forward in that truth. Proverbs 4: 20-23 says, “My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart; for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh, keep your heart with diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.”
God gave the law for it to bring us to Christ, when we find that no matter how hard we try to keep the law, we still fail, even if it is only in the thought life that we fail, we are still failing to keep the law. Christ came to save us from our sins, what the law cannot do Christ has done.
We are no longer under the law, to try to keep the law by our best effort, is denying that the salvation offered by Jesus Christ, is sufficient. When we enter into the rest that Christ offers us, then we will bear the fruit of righteousness. The only labour we have to do is to enter Christ’ rest. Hebrews 4: 11 says “let us labour therefore to enter that rest” (KJV), or, be diligent to enter that rest. It means believing what God declares us to be. The enemy will work hard to stop us entering God’s rest. We enter God’s rest by faith, believing all God’s promises, which means believing that we are what God says we are, no matter how much we feel that we fall far short of our standing in God. Christ has done everything for us, we need to rest in what He has done and receive it as a free gift. We could never keep the law, but now, under the New Covenant, Christ has put His law in our hearts, when we rest in what God says we are, then we don’t try to keep His law, When we stop trying to keep God’s law by our works, we will find that we keep it naturally, as fruit. Remember, there are two kinds of truth, one truth what God says about us, and another truth which is often the opposite of what God says, and that is what our body says, or our circumstances say. Which one will we choose to believe, what God says or what the flesh tells us?
The Breastplate of Righteousness.
We need to protect our heart. Our heart is where God has placed His law, His word.
To protect our heart we have put on the breastplate of righteousness. How do we deflect the enemies attacks with the breastplate of righteousness?
When we believe God, our faith is reckoned as righteousness, righteousness is a free gift. We need to receive it. If we receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness we shall reign in life by the one, Jesus Christ (Romans 5: 17). Also Christ is made unto us, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption, so, when we believe on Jesus and receive Him into our hearts then He is our righteousness. When God looks upon us He sees our faith as righteousness and Christ our righteousness in our hearts. This is to do with our relationship with God. However our breast plate of righteousness is our protection against the enemies condemnation. So what is the breastplate of righteousness that we have put on? It is receiving the truth that we are the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” The breastplate of righteousness is the truth that we are the righteousness of God in Christ. When the enemy attacks us with condemnation, we confess the truth that we have received into our hearts, which is, that we are “The righteousness of God in Him.”
The breastplate of righteousness is also called the breastplate of faith and love (1 Thessalonians 5:18), in other words if we mix faith and love together we get righteousness. God reckons our faith in the Lord Jesus as righteousness and fills us with His love, that we, along with all the saints, shall be rooted and grounded in love. If we are rooted and grounded in love we can only act righteously to our brothers and sisters in Christ.
The Feet Shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace.
The next important item of armour is to have our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. God is the God of peace and as we take the good news of the God of peace, God uses our feet to crush the enemy. The Bible tells us, in Romans 16: 20, “And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.” We need to be ready and willing to take the gospel of peace where the Spirit leads us. The apostle Peter tells us to “Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” (1 Peter 3:15 KJV). We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ and the good news is that this peace is a free gift because of what Jesus has done for us. The enemy will try to undermine our readiness to spread the gospel of peace, if he succeeds here then we won’t have the power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and to see the enemies of Christ placed under our feet. Let us always be ready and willing to give the gospel of peace to those who the Spirit leads us to.
W. E. Vine says that the Greek word for “preparation” can also be translated as “firm footing (foundation).” In other words, our feet need to be stood firm on the gospel of peace, which is our foundation.
The Shield of Faith.
Next is the shield of faith. We could call it Christ our shield. Because that is what it is, Christ shielding us from the fiery darts of the enemy. In Acts 3: 16 Peter said, concerning the man who had just been miraculously healed, “And His name (the name of Jesus Christ), through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.” We all have a measure of faith but to work miracles we need the faith of Christ.
In Psalm 18:35 David said, “You (God) have also given me the shield of Your salvation (Jesus).” Again in Psalm 3:3 David wrote, “But you, O LORD, are a shield for me”. In Psalm 28:7 David said, “The LORD is my strength and my shield.” There are many verses where David calls the LORD his shield. In Proverbs 30:5 Solomon said “Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him.” Jesus Christ is our shield. We need to trust Him to shield us from the fiery darts of the enemy.
How do we take up our shield of faith? First, the things we hope for, things that God says are ours but we don’t see them yet, the things we seem to fall far short of, we ask God to give us His faith to receive them. We pray earnestly for their manifestation. The devil has condemned us, we know we are not worthy. Then we turn to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, we turn away from the condemnation and lies of the enemy, and looking unto Jesus we worship God. We pour out our love and devotion to Jesus the object of our faith. We desire Him, we worship Him with adoration. What we prayed for becomes now secondary, while Christ becomes our all in all. Then our prayers are answered. The victory is ours.
The Bible says, “The just shall live by faith.” Everything that God has given us, is received by faith. The Bible says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10: 17). Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God,” (Matthew 4:4). How much we need to know the word of God. However, our faith is in a person, that person is Jesus Christ. If we believe who He is and what He has done for us by His death on the cross, we will know we can trust Him to meet all our needs.
The devil comes along hoping that our trust will be in our works, our own effort to live right for God, instead of trusting in Jesus. He will try to focus our eyes on ourselves and our failed effort to live righteously. He will try to keep us focused on our sins and then condemn us for our complete failure to live a Christian life. Faith however says that Jesus has died for us and removed our sins far from us, sin is no longer an issue. The Bible says that there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8: 1). The devil will condemn us, hoping we will believe him and condemn ourselves. If we know and believe the very basics of our faith, then we will know our sins are all forgiven and removed far from us. We are washed in the blood of the Lamb and are perfectly clean from all sin. Jesus has saved us from all our sins. The devil will also try to stop us from receiving the Holy Spirit. We receive the Holy Spirit by faith not by works. We ask and receive.
The Helmet of Salvation.
We also take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God. The helmet of salvation is also called the helmet of hope of salvation (1 Thessalonians 5:8). Hope is, of course, looking to the future, to something we don’t see now but we look forward to the time when it becomes a reality. The hope of salvation is that we look forward and long for, the day of our salvation. But surely, our salvation happened when we first believed on Jesus Christ? Yes, we were saved by trusting in Jesus, we were “born again”, that is, our spirits were born again. However, salvation is being worked out now in our souls, this is why the armour is so important. The more the armour becomes us, the more our souls become what God says about us. The hope of salvation looks right forward to the day when Jesus returns and our body is changed, this corruption puts on incorruption and this mortal puts on immortality, the day we are caught up to meet the Lord in the air.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for (Hebrews 11:1), in other words, as our faith grows we receive what we hoped for. We are saved now by believing on Jesus, but we grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. We grow as we feast on the pure milk of the word.
As we grow in God, the devil wants to stop us, one of the things he will do, is to condemn us. If he succeeds we will have a guilty conscience and our fellowship with God will be stopped. This must not happen. The scripture to counter this is found in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” The devil will condemn us, if we believe him then we will also condemn ourselves, however God will not condemn us. When we feel condemned then we must repeat that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, and keep speaking it till the condemnation has gone. Do not let condemnation rob us of our inheritance in the Lord.
The Sword of the Spirit.
Along side the helmet of salvation is “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17). The helmet of salvation protects our mind, so does the sword of the Spirit. When the devil tries to put a negative thought into our mind, the Spirit can give a countering thought from the scriptures. Without the Spirit of Life the word is a dead letter, and the letter kills but the Spirit gives life.
Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
“Division of soul and spirit,” there are some who say that the soul and the spirit are the same, we cannot distinguish between them. A lot of what is seen as spiritual in the church is actually soulish. We often have worship leaders that are not filled with the Spirit, they lead the worship which is perhaps very nice even enjoyed by the congregation, the whole church enjoys worshipping the Lord. However they cannot lead into spiritual worship, it is the soul replacing the spirit, but no one, without the Spirit, can distinguish between soul and spirit. I am not knocking the worship leaders, they do their best, but it is just how it is, the soul can imitate the spirit. Even what sometimes are called, manifestations of the Spirit, are powerful soulish manifestations (not every time, I add). So what is the answer? We need to have received the Holy Spirit and be filled with the Spirit, speaking in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord (see Ephesians 5:18-20). We need to pray with the spirit, which is praying in tongues. “He that speaks with a tongue edifies himself” (1 Corinthians 14:4). Edify means to build up. To speak in tongues builds a Christian up spiritually. When a Christian is filled with the Spirit continually they will discern between what is of God, i.e., spiritual, and what is from man, i.e., soulish.
The armour of God is for our defence against the enemy, that we may ready to be used by God for His service when He sees fit.
Finally, after our defensive Warfare we need to be Offensive.
The next weapon is for our offensive warfare, after we have taken every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, we must pray for others, we can pray for the situations in our own life and in the lives of our brothers and sisters in the Lord. To pray for others we need to do it in the Spirit, with praise and thanksgiving to the Lord. We need to keep our eyes on the Lord and let our request be followed up with praise and thanksgiving.
Ephesians 6:18 says, “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.”
The armour of God is to protect us from the accusations of the Devil. He will accuse us day and night, what he says might be right or wrong, but it is not the truth. He will tempt us, condemn us when we fall, and overcome us with guilt. His whole strategy is to cause us, due to our guilt, to be unusable to God. However, the Truth tells us that in Him (Jesus Christ) we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins (Ephesians 1:7), and that our sins and lawless deeds He will remember no more (Hebrews 8:12, 10:17). We are not unusable to God because of any sin we have committed, (they are completely blotted out, Isaiah 44:22, Acts 3:19), but because we don’t believe in the Truth, that is, the truth of what Jesus has achieved for us, and who we are in God. It is faith in what Christ has done for us, and faith in our standing with God. Without faith it is impossible to please God. It is not who we are in our flesh, but who we are in Christ Jesus. There is therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
One last point I should mention is to do with 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” How come we have to continually confess our sins, if they are forgiven and blotted out? Well yes, legally they are blotted out (see 1 John 1:7), but this is to do with family and fellowship (1 John 1:7). If we have offended any part of the body of Christ, we need to put it right with them. If God shows us we have wrongly hurt a brother or sister in Christ, we need to put it right and acknowledge it to God and He will cleanse us from all wrong doing (unrighteousness) (see 2 Corinthians 12:13).
By Mark Greenwood 9th January 2026
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