Strength and Weakness, Victory and Failure

UV 4144/10000 Strength and Weakness, Victory and Failure Keep actively watching and praying that you may not come into temptation the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Matthew 26 v 41 The flesh is weak but the spirit and bones of man are strong. The flesh is overpowered by appetite, temptation, lust, weariness, laziness. The senses often overcome our scruples. Flesh wants to do what is opposite to the spirit. It does not want to do what the spirit wants. The flesh and spirit are often at cross purposes but the purpose of the cross is to reconcile God with man and incidentally, it also reconciles the spirit and flesh of man. The Spirit is reinstated as the one to supersede the flesh and direct the flesh. If the flesh embodies human weakness, the spirit constitutes grace or the strength of God manifested in a godly man, made godly by faith in Jesus. If flesh and bone and spirit co-exist side by side harmoniously, the purpose of God is fulfilled in our lives. Weakness and strength co-exist in our being. Hence, we need to seek strength of the Lord to overcome our inherent weaknesses of spirit, mind and body. The Lord gives us His grace and the Holy Spirit to overcome weaknesses of the flesh of the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye. He gives us grace to overcome the weakness of the spirit and mind which is the pride of life. Hence, we need not hide like Adam and Eve when our weaknesses are exposed. We should instead hide in the Lord, hide the word in our hearts to help us turn our weaknesses into strength. A man whose steps are ordered of the Lord or who lives according to the word will therefore, have the Spirit of God ruling over his own spirit, mind and body. Thereby, as Paul wrote, in our weaknesses will His grace and glory be revealed. In our ignorance and folly, is His wisdom manifested. The direction of Jesus in the uni-verse to his sleepy disciples who could not stay up to pray with Him even though they were willing in spirit to do so is to watch out for their weaknesses and to ask the Lord for grace and power to overcome these weaknesses. We also need to be alert and be forewarned of temptations, snares the enemy lays to catch our feet and pray proactively asking the Lord for strength to be aware, to detect the snares, to avoid and overcome these. The tempatation can come from within us, our own senses, our own desires, our own bodies and flesh or it can come from without. We need to be both aware and prayerful to overcome both types of temptations in this world as long as we live.