modern christian view of sexuality not realistic

[Who Me]

It certainly does not. It also implies that "burning" with desire is not good.

So either we go back to having people get married in their early to mid teens, or .... Give me another alternative.

Well if you are keen to go back to the early medieval age sure.
Studies of marriage records in both Europe and America show that most marriages were made with the bride 19 and the groom in his 20's.


The real problems are the rejection of the judeochristian morality and the availability of effective contraception that encourages sexuzl immorality.

This is an area where Christians can be seen to be different.
Even 30 years ago when I was courting people expected us to be living together and were surprised that we won't.

 

[D-D-W]

??? How about living under the control of the Holy Spirit?

Indeed. But you are making an assumption that the control of the Holy Spirit takes away a God-given drive. The 3 persons of the Godhead work together, not in opposition to each other.

 

[D-D-W]

Well if you are keen to go back to the early medieval age sure.
Studies of marriage records in both Europe and America show that most marriages were made with the bride 19 and the groom in his 20's.

For the last 100 years, probably. But there is a LOT of history before 1900 ad.

The real problems are the rejection of the judeochristian morality and the availability of effective contraception that encourages sexual immorality.

I can agree with that.

Even 30 years ago when I was courting people expected us to be living together and were surprised that we won't.

I was around for the start of that in the late 60s/ early 70s.

 

[Tenchi]

Indeed. But you are making an assumption that the control of the Holy Spirit takes away a God-given drive. The 3 persons of the Godhead work together, not in opposition to each other.

No, I don't make this assumption.

The control of the Holy Spirit over the individual believer doesn't require he eradicate the natural, human sex-drive, but that he maintain it's proper place and proportion in the believer's life. Couple this divine control to other godly desires the Holy Spirit produces and enlarges in the believer who is submitted to him and the net effect upon the believer is a healthy, rightly-ordered, God-honoring sexuality.

 

[Who Me]

For the last 100 years, probably. But there is a LOT of history before 1900 ad.

Then do the research. The age of marriage varied according to culture and economics, but there us a constant most societies recognised that sexual activity lead to marriage.
Today Christian abstinence from premarital sex is a witness.

 

[D-D-W]

Then do the research. The age of marriage varied according to culture and economics, but there us a constant most societies recognised that sexual activity lead to marriage.
Today Christian abstinence from premarital sex is a witness.

The only time period / culture that interests me for this discussion is the late 2nd temple period in Judea. (when the NT was written)

 

[Hidden In Him]

No, I don't make this assumption.

The control of the Holy Spirit over the individual believer doesn't require he eradicate the natural, human sex-drive, but that he maintain it's proper place and proportion in the believer's life. Couple this divine control to other godly desires the Holy Spirit produces and enlarges in the believer who is submitted to him and the net effect upon the believer is a healthy, rightly-ordered, God-honoring sexuality.

Actually, I'd tend to lean more in DDW's direction on this one. The Holy Spirit is certainly what we are to submit to, but Paul didn't talk about the war between the flesh and the Spirit as if it was some easy struggle, or that it was a given that the Spirit would be in the ascendancy. He even lamented at one point, "Oh wretched man that I am," which is interpreted many ways, but given that he was a single man doesn't leave sexual issues off the table entirely.

The early church remedy for the sex drive was fasting, not just the presence of the Holy Spirit, and serious fasting - fasting that is consistent enough to subjugate the sex drive completely under so that it was no longer a significant factor - is no easy business either. Studies have shown a low calorie diet (well under 1000 calories a day) will accomplish it in the typical healthy male over the course of several months, and more severe fasting can do it quicker, but it's still not easy, no matter how a man attempts to do it.

 

[Riven]

The early church remedy for the sex drive was fasting, not just the presence of the Holy Spirit, and serious fasting - fasting that is consistent enough to subjugate the sex drive completely under so that it was no longer a significant factor - is no easy business either. Studies have shown a low calorie diet (well under 1000 calories a day) will accomplish it in the typical healthy male over the course of several months, and more severe fasting can do it quicker, but it's still not easy, no matter how a man attempts to do it.

What a horrifying thought. It's like menopause for men.

 

[Hidden In Him]

What a horrifying thought. It's like menopause for men.

https://media.tenor.co/images/909453243a36fa48365cb847b945cc21/raw

 

[Who Me]

The only time period / culture that interests me for this discussion is the late 2nd temple period in Judea. (when the NT was written)

Which makes discussion about modern sexuality with you ridiculous, as our culture was ingluenced by Christianity and you have already rejected the biblical morality on sexuality of waiting until married.

 

[Tenchi]

Actually, I'd tend to lean more in DDW's direction on this one. The Holy Spirit is certainly what we are to submit to, but Paul didn't talk about the war between the flesh and the Spirit as if it was some easy struggle, or that it was a given that the Spirit would be in the ascendancy. He even lamented at one point, "Oh wretched man that I am," which is interpreted many ways, but given that he was a single man doesn't leave sexual issues off the table entirely.

Romans 7 to which you've referred here is just the preface to Romans 8 in which Paul explained the resolution to the "wretched man" condition he'd described. In fact, in the very next verse following the one in which he speaks of being a "wretched man," Paul wrote:

Romans 7:24-25
24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! ...

In chapter 8, Paul explained what he meant here, what the route to victory over the "wretched man" condition was, exactly:

Romans 8:4
4 ...the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

This is the same thing Paul wrote to the Galatians:

Galatians 5:16
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

and,

Galatians 5:25
25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.

So, the Christian person who is "walking in the Spirit," not just "living in the Spirit," is able not to gratify the desires of the flesh and to fulfill the righteous requirement of the law of God. What is it to "walk in the Spirit"?

Galatians 5:18
18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.

Romans 8:14
14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

It's possible to be a truly born-again person, an adopted child of God, and not be living "in step" with the Holy Spirit, following his lead in everything. The Corinthian believers illustrated this very well:

1 Corinthians 3:1-3
1 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ.
2 I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able,
3 for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?

Though they were "in Christ" brethren, though, as such, they lived in/by the Spirit, these believers were carnal, fleshly and living in jealousy and strife, as a result. They were saved, but carrying on in the "wretched man" condition Paul described in Romans 7, not "walking in the Spirit" at all.

What's the essence of "walking in the Spirit"? What does it mean to be "led by the Spirit"? Again, Paul took pains to explain this to the believers at Rome:

Romans 6:12-14
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,
13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

Here, Paul identified the key to "walking in the Spirit" and thus gaining victory over the flesh: Presenting (or yielding) oneself to God as an "instrument of righteousness." The fundamental idea in this is submission to God:

Romans 6:18-22
18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
21 Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.
22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.

Paul couldn't be clearer, I think, that the key to a holy life, to conquering all sin, is being "enslaved to God" or, put another way, to be "walking in (led by) the Spirit." He described this "enslavement" to God as follows in chapter 12 of his letter to the Christians at Rome:

Romans 12:1
1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

The idea here is a total conscious, explicit and persistent giving over of oneself - enslavement - to God to do with as He pleases. No "take backsies"; no partial sacrifice, no "You can have this area God, but not that one"; no "Help me, God, to do my own will." It's only in this condition of constant submission to God that a believer actually "walks in the Spirit," which is, as Paul wrote, the essential factor in not fulfilling the desires of the flesh (Galatians 5:16) of not being the "wretched man" of Romans 7.

Why is this? Because to not be "walking in/by the Spirit," to not be "led by the Spirit," to not be a "living sacrifice to God, to not be "enslaved to God," is to be in rebellion toward Him. God will not aid a rebel but actually opposes such a person, saved or not.

James 4:6-7
6 ..."God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble."
7 Submit therefore to God...

1 Peter 5:5-6
5 ... “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,

When a believer is conscious, explicitly, and persistently submitted to the will and way of the Holy Spirit, he goes to work on them, changing their desires, thinking and conduct in conformity to Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29), making them increasingly holy vessels, fit for the Master's use.

Romans 8:12-13
12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

2 Corinthians 3:18
18 And 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. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Philippians 1:6
6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Philippians 2:13
13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Philippians 4:13
13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Ephesians 3:16
16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,

Ephesians 6:10
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.

Galatians 5:22-23
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

And so on. When born-again children of God are being constantly led by the Spirit, when they are constantly under his control, then it is that his life and power works in them, empowering and changing them.

The Great Battle of Christian living, then, isn't to force, compel or make oneself do what God wants, but to remain yielded to God, to the control of His Spirit, so that he is free to transform one's desires, thinking and behavior.

The early church remedy for the sex drive was fasting, not just the presence of the Holy Spirit, and serious fasting - fasting that is consistent enough to subjugate the sex drive completely under so that it was no longer a significant factor - is no easy business either.

This is the way of the flesh, of self-effort, to do what only God can do. Like begets like. A cat, begets a cat, a dog begets a dog, and you can only beget more of you. Only God can beget godliness in us and He does this only as we are "walking in the Spirit." Paul said as much to the believers in Galatia and at Colosse:

Galatians 3:1-3
1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.
2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?
3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

Colossians 2:20-23
20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—
21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch”
22 (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings?
23 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

 

[Hidden In Him]

This is the way of the flesh, of self-effort, to do what only God can do. Like begets like. A cat, begets a cat, a dog begets a dog, and you can only beget more of you. Only God can beget godliness in us and He does this only as we are "walking in the Spirit."

No, Tenchi. One of the fruit of the Spirit is self-control, which refers specifically to control over the bodily appetites. And the Spirit of God controls the flesh is by empowering the believer not to feed it. You used earthly analogies so I will give you another one. If an oak tree receives enough water, light and nutrients, what will it do? It will do precisely what it was programmed and designed to do: Produce acorns. So too with the human body. You cannot feed it night and day and hope it will do anything more than what it was designed to do as well. It will reproduce, so the sex drive will be strong. The ancients were correct. The way the Holy Spirit brings the flesh under control is by empowering the believer to eat less. This is why Paul said he engaged in fasting often.

 

[Tenchi]

No, Tenchi. One of the fruit of the Spirit is self-control, which refers specifically to control over the bodily appetites.

You didn't really consider what I wrote, did you?

We control our bodies as the Spirit controls us. Philippians 2:12-13. Our self-control is actually Spirit-control. Galatians 5:22-23.

The way the Holy Spirit brings the flesh under control is by empowering the believer to eat less. This is why Paul said he engaged in fasting often.

Again, this reveals how little you actually considered what I presented to you from God's word. It runs exactly contrary to the many verses I cited - especially the passage from the end of Colossians 2.

I'm actually surprised by how badly mistaken you are in such a basic aspect of Christian living.

 

[Hidden In Him]

You didn't really consider what I wrote, did you?

We control our bodies as the Spirit controls us. Philippians 2:12-13. Our self-control is actually Spirit-control. Galatians 5:22-23.

Yes, Tenchi. I understood you. I didn't just join the forums yesterday, LoL. I'm familiar with the common positions often presented on issues like this, and your presentation above is well-packaged and well-presented as usual. Only you diverge from what I believe when you equate things like the practice of fasting with "works of the flesh." It is a work of the Spirit to subjugate the flesh, and not in some philosophical or theoretical way but in a very tangible and practical one.

See, I've had friends at other forums who are similar to you, one in particular. Very sound, very well-written - a Baptist. But his positions often devolve into theoretical/ philosophical constructs whereas mine are more practical. I think he overdoes it with the conceptualizing.

Again, this reveals how little you actually considered what I presented to you from God's word. It runs exactly contrary to the many verses I cited - especially the passage from the end of Colossians 2.

I'm actually surprised by how badly mistaken you are in such a basic aspect of Christian living.

Again, I'm not a novice to theological discussion on this subject. We simply disagree is all.

But I have read your piece, and I do understand your position.

 

[Christian Saboteur]

Boys and Girls getting married and having children between 13-15 was normal in Appalachia back in the day.Just Search, "They Married Young In Appalachia",there is some interesting reading.When me and my wife went to Dollywood,we seen the replica of the small cabin where Dolly was raised,Dad,Mom,and 11 siblings.It was practically one room,I thought,Man!,dad and mom must have went for alot of walks in the woods,you know,'picking berries' and all,Ha,Ha.

 

[Hidden In Him]

Boys and Girls getting married and having children between 13-15 was normal in Appalachia back in the day.Just Search, "They Married Young In Appalachia",there is some interesting reading.When me and my wife went to Dollywood,we seen the replica of the small cabin where Dolly was raised,Dad,Mom,and 11 siblings.It was practically one room,I thought,Man!,dad and mom must have went for alot of walks in the woods,you know,'picking berries' and all,Ha,Ha.

Totally different lifestyle. Having a life revolved around having a family. That's why the emphasis was on a young man establishing an income, and establishing a home. They were the entertainment to one another, a la Little House On The Prairie, because there was no TV and there was no radio. It revolved around families interacting with one another socially, which is all the more why a young men needed to plan from the earliest age possible for building a family of his own.

 

[Tenchi]

Yes, Tenchi. I understood you. I didn't just join the forums yesterday, LoL.

Understanding what I wrote has nothing to do with how long you've been on the forums.

I'm familiar with the common positions often presented on issues like this,

I'm sure you are. But being familiar with a "position" isn't the same as actually understanding it.

Only you diverge from what I believe when you equate things like the practice of fasting with "works of the flesh." It is a work of the Spirit to subjugate the flesh, and not in some philosophical or theoretical way but in a very tangible and practical one.

What I wrote a couple of posts ago to you wasn't merely "what I believe," one subjective viewpoint among equally-valid, equally-subjective, viewpoints. This, I thought, would be obvious from how and what I wrote. I forget, though, how much the World has crept into Christian thinking, creating the sort of "your truth, my truth" attitude you seem to have.

Colossians 2:20-23
20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—
21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch”
22 (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings?
23 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

I don't know how you think fasting is exempted from what Paul wrote in verse 23. And since fasting is nowhere in the NT ever recommended as a common and effective means of overcoming the flesh, it's doubly odd to me that you would think it has exactly the value Paul above said that such things don't have.

Further, I don't know what you mean by the Spirit subjugating the flesh in a philosophical or theoretical way. All that I wrote to you about how the Spirit makes the individual believer a "vessel sanctified and fit for the Master's use" is, in my own life, the practical, concrete, spiritual experience in which I live every day. It is an astonishing life with God that I live, daily seeing Him do in my life as He's promised to do in all those who "walk in the Spirit," so profoundly and naturally changing my desires, my thinking and my conduct that most times I don't even realize I'm changing, until some circumstance brings the change to the fore and I find myself surprised.

What's most astonishing about walking with God in the way He's laid out for me in His word (the way I described to you a couple of posts ago) is the near-total absence of the former terrible and constant battle I waged against myself, that, more often than not, I lost. Instead, as God takes me deeper with Himself, I find my life reflects, more and more, the words of the prophet Isaiah:

Isaiah 40:28-31
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30 Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted;
31 but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

But his positions often devolve into theoretical/ philosophical constructs whereas mine are more practical. I think he overdoes it with the conceptualizing.

Well, since you know next-to-nothing, really, of the actual substance of my spiritual life, I'd urge you not to jump to conclusions about the theoretical/philosophical character of that experience. Again, what I wrote to you is about as contrary to the theoretical as could be possible. I get, though, that like so many Christians, what I explained to you from God's word seems theoretical. This is, however, a testament to your experience with God, not to the reality (or lack thereof) of what He has said to His children in His word.

Again, I'm not a novice to theological discussion on this subject. We simply disagree is all.

But I have read your piece, and I do understand your position.

No, you really don't, as your remarks in your last post plainly show. But, it's not my responsibility to make you understand; it's God's. If you want to live in the truths of what I've explained, in the astonishing freedom and transformation and ever-deepening fellowship with God they produce, you can - but not by my talking you into them. God must open them up to you. I hope and pray He will.

 

[Hopeful 2]

Indeed. But you are making an assumption that the control of the Holy Spirit takes away a God-given drive. The 3 persons of the Godhead work together, not in opposition to each other.

Is that something then, that God can't do ?

 

[Hopeful 2]

Actually, I'd tend to lean more in DDW's direction on this one. The Holy Spirit is certainly what we are to submit to, but Paul didn't talk about the war between the flesh and the Spirit as if it was some easy struggle, or that it was a given that the Spirit would be in the ascendancy. He even lamented at one point, "Oh wretched man that I am," which is interpreted many ways, but given that he was a single man doesn't leave sexual issues off the table entirely.

You do realize, I hope, that Paul's Rom 7:24 plait was answered in Rom 6:6 .

The early church remedy for the sex drive was fasting, not just the presence of the Holy Spirit, and serious fasting - fasting that is consistent enough to subjugate the sex drive completely under so that it was no longer a significant factor - is no easy business either.

Got a scripture for that ?

Studies have shown a low calorie diet (well under 1000 calories a day) will accomplish it in the typical healthy male over the course of several months, and more severe fasting can do it quicker, but it's still not easy, no matter how a man attempts to do it.

 

[Hopeful 2]

Romans 7 to which you've referred here is just the preface to Romans 8 in which Paul explained the resolution to the "wretched man" condition he'd described. In fact, in the very next verse following the one in which he speaks of being a "wretched man," Paul wrote:

Romans 7:24-25
24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! ...

In chapter 8, Paul explained what he meant here, what the route to victory over the "wretched man" condition was, exactly:

Romans 8:4
4 ...the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

This is the same thing Paul wrote to the Galatians:

Galatians 5:16
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

and,

Galatians 5:25
25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.

So, the Christian person who is "walking in the Spirit," not just "living in the Spirit," is able not to gratify the desires of the flesh and to fulfill the righteous requirement of the law of God. What is it to "walk in the Spirit"?

Galatians 5:18
18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.

Romans 8:14
14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

It's possible to be a truly born-again person, an adopted child of God, and not be living "in step" with the Holy Spirit, following his lead in everything. The Corinthian believers illustrated this very well:

1 Corinthians 3:1-3
1 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ.
2 I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able,
3 for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?

Though they were "in Christ" brethren, though, as such, they lived in/by the Spirit, these believers were carnal, fleshly and living in jealousy and strife, as a result. They were saved, but carrying on in the "wretched man" condition Paul described in Romans 7, not "walking in the Spirit" at all.

What's the essence of "walking in the Spirit"? What does it mean to be "led by the Spirit"? Again, Paul took pains to explain this to the believers at Rome:

Romans 6:12-14
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,
13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

Here, Paul identified the key to "walking in the Spirit" and thus gaining victory over the flesh: Presenting (or yielding) oneself to God as an "instrument of righteousness." The fundamental idea in this is submission to God:

Romans 6:18-22
18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
21 Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.
22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.

Paul couldn't be clearer, I think, that the key to a holy life, to conquering all sin, is being "enslaved to God" or, put another way, to be "walking in (led by) the Spirit." He described this "enslavement" to God as follows in chapter 12 of his letter to the Christians at Rome:

Romans 12:1
1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

The idea here is a total conscious, explicit and persistent giving over of oneself - enslavement - to God to do with as He pleases. No "take backsies"; no partial sacrifice, no "You can have this area God, but not that one"; no "Help me, God, to do my own will." It's only in this condition of constant submission to God that a believer actually "walks in the Spirit," which is, as Paul wrote, the essential factor in not fulfilling the desires of the flesh (Galatians 5:16) of not being the "wretched man" of Romans 7.

Why is this? Because to not be "walking in/by the Spirit," to not be "led by the Spirit," to not be a "living sacrifice to God, to not be "enslaved to God," is to be in rebellion toward Him. God will not aid a rebel but actually opposes such a person, saved or not.

James 4:6-7
6 ..."God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble."
7 Submit therefore to God...

1 Peter 5:5-6
5 ... “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,

When a believer is conscious, explicitly, and persistently submitted to the will and way of the Holy Spirit, he goes to work on them, changing their desires, thinking and conduct in conformity to Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29), making them increasingly holy vessels, fit for the Master's use.

Romans 8:12-13
12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

2 Corinthians 3:18
18 And 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. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Philippians 1:6
6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Philippians 2:13
13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Philippians 4:13
13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Ephesians 3:16
16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,

Ephesians 6:10
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.

Galatians 5:22-23
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

And so on. When born-again children of God are being constantly led by the Spirit, when they are constantly under his control, then it is that his life and power works in them, empowering and changing them.

The Great Battle of Christian living, then, isn't to force, compel or make oneself do what God wants, but to remain yielded to God, to the control of His Spirit, so that he is free to transform one's desires, thinking and behavior.



This is the way of the flesh, of self-effort, to do what only God can do. Like begets like. A cat, begets a cat, a dog begets a dog, and you can only beget more of you. Only God can beget godliness in us and He does this only as we are "walking in the Spirit." Paul said as much to the believers in Galatia and at Colosse:

Galatians 3:1-3
1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.
2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?
3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

Colossians 2:20-23
20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—
21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch”
22 (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings?
23 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

(I hope you don't mind if I use your thoughts and some of those verses, in the the fight for perfect obedience to God. )