If the Spirit is in you waging war against your flesh in a great battle, then be both convicted and comforted, for God is at work in you calling you to greater holiness, righteousness, and obedience. Be convicted, but also be comforted, and follow the Spirit into greater conformity to Christ.

I saw a comic by Randy Glasbergen of two businesspeople conferring in an office, and the managerial-looking man holding a pen and paper says to the businesswoman, “We need to form a conflict-resolution team to settle the dispute over who should be chosen for our conflict-resolution team.” I think we’d all agree that conflict with others is the norm. But there is also conflict happening inside us.

As Christians, there is a war within us. Our sanctification isn’t complete, so we still have sinful desires deep within, strong urges to gratify our flesh. We also have the Holy Spirit in us. The Spirit produces strong urges to obey and glorify God. And the flesh and the Spirit are in conflict. Paul said in Galatians 5:17, “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.” As believers, we are in Christ, and Christ is in us, and by God’s grace and Spirit, we want to do what pleases Christ. But deep within us are evil impulses. Every day we feel them. They are difficult to subdue. Sadly, we do sometimes succumb to our evil impulses and afterward, feel awful and wonder, “Why am I like this? Why do I do things like this? I know where sin leads! God, have mercy on me a sinner.”

Paul understood this inner conflict quite well. He wrote in Romans 7:15, “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” Don’t you identify with that? There’s a great conflict within you and me.

As followers of Jesus Christ, God’s law does two very helpful things for us. It alerts us to the sin remaining in us, the sin that we must put to death, and it helpfully explains how we should love and serve our heavenly Father who adopted us into His family. God’s law shows us how we fall short and how we are to live as God’s children, and when we obey our Father’s commands it comforts and assures us of our Father’s grace and Spirit at work in us.

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