THE SPIRIT INDEED IS WILLING,BUT THE FLESH IS WEAK

Matthew 26:39-41 (KJV)

³⁹And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

⁴⁰And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour?

⁴¹Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

That statement ‘the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak’ means, When we want to do anything divine… our spirits are ready to do it, but our bodies are not ready…

In the above account we read, After the Lord Jesus was around in the afternoon with his disciples for work, when evening came they did not have time to rest but went straight to the house where they were prepared to stay. There the Lord continued to speak to His disciples many things, as well as to say goodbye to them, for it was the last night with them.

So they spent many hours in that house, singing, and being warned in their journey and being encouraged by the Lord.. Furthermore, on the same night, the Lord washed his disciples’ feet to give them an example, as well as to share the Lord’s table

So they were too late for bedtime If you follow closely you will noticed it was not less than two o’clock at night that they stopped talking … So it was clear that they were too tired.

Just imagine all day long you have been wandering around, and still even at the midnight, instead of resting, the first thing you are told is to pray, usually this could be little difficult but the Lord knew it was possible.

And that is why he told them that the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.… This a battle against the body..that means If we can overcome our bodies then we will benefit greatly spiritually.

Now how can we overcome our flesh?

First of all, it is important to realize that having a body is not a sin! God’s purpose to create us with flesh and their desires was not bad from the beginning, nor was it a trap! The Lord designed these bodies for us, with their desires so that we could live in this world with all pleasures and happiness without boredom, that is the primary purpose of the body, that we might not be disappointed.

For stance When the body wants to relax, he created something called sleep, so when the body wants to relax, it sinks into a deep sleep, which gives the person some kind of pleasure in it.

Meanwhile in order for a person not get bored by eating, God has put an appetite in food, so that one may intend to eat always, even if he is not always hungry… but the main purpose of eating is not to give us pleasure, but to give our bodies strength…. Just imagine if there were no pleasure in eating, how boredom our bodies would be?

In the same way that we enjoy this world, God had created us with varieties of desires, so as to add the taste for living in this world, a desire to get together, play together, have fun together, and many more.

It was God’s purpose to live in this world without getting bored or seeing it as a bad place.

But after Adam and Eve sinned, the whole world was engrossed with evil, so not everything was worth the desire in the world again. Adam gave Satan possession of this world, Satan invented and invested many things, so for anyone who will fall into the same lust of his inventions, he will be lost. so that’s why the Bible tells us to leave the world, not to desire the world, because the world is already lost.

Now as we are pondering on how to overcome this flesh..

We will not overcome the bodies by rebuking them, because these desires were created by God himself, and not by the devil. you can’t rebuke hunger, sleep, or your nose to smell good food, and you can’t rebuke your body from getting excited when you go through some kind of stimulation. No you cant.

The only way to overcome the body, is to keep yourself away from the temptations that lead to lust, so if you want saliva to stop falling, there is only one cure! Stay away from the places they make your favorite foods, you can’t stop yourself from craving food in front of a meal, it’s a tough battle that you can’t afford,

So when you want to keep yourself from becoming lustful, the cure is to stay away from all the stimulants like pornography and secular companies, whose main focus is talking about those lustful things, stay away from worldly music, and also from any relationship with different sex before marriage, That’s just it

You may wonder someone begging you to pray for them to overcome the desires of the flesh!!! There is no prayers to win those desires my brother! Don’t be fooled !! The remedy is to stay away from them.

Meanwhile if you want to conquer sleep the remedy is to stay away from the bed and be busy! .. You give up your mind to sleep and send it to something in front of you. No… told them to pray!

There is no prayer to prevent sleep … The Lord Jesus did not tell Peter to wake up and rebuke the demon of sleep !! No… He told them to pray!

Have I met someone telling me that each time she wanted to pray , or to read the bible immediately she falls asleep? But when she watched a movie all sleep fade away.She thought it was a demon that kept her from reading the Word! … No it wasn’t a demon sister, it was you tolerating your body,

Think about this, when you are watching a television program that is boring to you, suddenly you will find yourself falling asleep..do you think that was Satan did it? No it was your body responded after it has find that program is unpleasant to it. Same applies when you want to pray or read the bible.

So the remedy for overcoming sleep is to go into deep study of the importance of prayer, once you know the importance of prayer,

I have never slept in worship, and nothing special is going on inside of me, nor is there any demon to contend with, and no vision I saw to stop myself from doing it. I just understood the importance of prayers in my life and that is what motivated me not to allow the sleep to overcome me by any means each time i wanted to pray or worship. Because I know If I wouldn’t pray hard enough I wouldn’t do anything perfectly , nor would I see God moving in my life.

The Bible says the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.… Our minds are ready to do the will of God, the great battle is in us when we failed to understand the revelation of importance of prayers.

In conclusion Remember that! This world, not what the Lord intended for us to live by the lusts of our flesh, this world is given to Satan, all the works of the flesh and all his passions are ultimately ending up in the lake of fire. The Bible says …

Galatians 5:16-21 (KJV)

¹⁶This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

¹⁷For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

¹⁸But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.

¹⁹Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,

²⁰Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,

²¹Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.