Flesh and Spirit.

Flesh and Spirit. Truly there is a war between the two.

God is spirit, and we must worship Him in spirit.

All Christ followers comprehend that there is a very real war against the flesh and spirit. We will to worship God and our flesh wars against this. The battle is real. There is NO magic, instantaneous change in our flesh tendencies. Many get fooled by their conversion experience which can be thrilling as we begin a new life in Christ. That conversion experience seems to put the flesh to rest as the spirit soars, but then as time goes on the flesh tendencies begin to rear up bit by bit and Satan is right there ready to give us all he's got in order to discourage us into a life without the spirit. Christ must prevail. The spirit must prevail.

Joh 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

The law is weak in the flesh because our flesh nature cannot keep the law. The spirit of Christ can live in the righteousness the law proclaims, and Christ in us, His spirit with ours. We live in Christ and that is the only way we can truly live.

Articles on Romans by E. J. Waggoner Chapter 8

The Flesh and the Spirit.

"For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit."

3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; 4 that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 5 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

Note that this depends on the preceding statement, "that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

The things of the Spirit are the commandments of God, because the law is spiritual. The flesh serves the law of sin (see the preceding chapter, and Galatians 5:19-21, where the works of the flesh are described). But Christ came in the same flesh, to show the power of the Spirit over the flesh. "They that are in the flesh can not please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of Christ dwell in you."

Now no one will claim that the flesh of a man is any different after his conversion from what it was before. Least of all will the converted man himself say so; for he has continual evidence of its perversity. But if he is really converted, and the Spirit of Christ dwells in him, he is no more in the power of the flesh. Even so Christ came in the same sinful flesh, yet he was without sin, because he was always led by the Spirit.