Paul said, "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing" (Rom. 7:18). In their efforts to overcome the flesh, some professing Christians have decided that living close to God is possible only by extinguishing all fleshly desires, and they have adopted an ascetic way of life.

A tide of asceticism swept through Christendom soon after AD 300. Many at that time fled into seclusion and practiced severe forms of self-denial. They had no spouses, indeed renounced marriage. They attempted to get along on as little food as possible and considered it meritorious to fast for long periods of time. Occasionally, they met with other people for worship, but their days were mostly spent in either meditation or some monotonous industry like basket weaving. The new movement, centered in Egypt, soon absorbed thousands of people. At one time a traveler reported that there were more people pursuing a religious life in the desert than were living in the cities. But the movement spawned revolting extremes. "We read of hermits or anchorites grazing in the fields after the manner of animals, rolling naked in thorn bushes, or living in swamps infested with snakes." St. Simeon Stylites passed a whole summer "as a rooted vegetable in a garden," then began construction of his famous pillar. After building it to a height of sixty feet, he lived on the top for the remaining thirty years of his life.

Did asceticism conquer the flesh? By no means. Some of the hermits confessed that they were constantly tormented by carnal fantasies, or by bizarre visions of angels and demons. The harder they tried to defeat the flesh, the more spectacular their failure. They failed because you cannot overcome the flesh by the power of the flesh.

The Fallen Body, Soul, and Spirit

The three threats to spirituality are "the world, the flesh, and the devil." "The flesh" in this expression refers to man's sinful nature. The Bible teaches that from this nature arises three kinds of lust—"the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" (1 John 2:16). Here, the term "flesh" has a narrower meaning, referring to the sinful desires characteristic of the body alone. These are not the totality of sinful desires, however, for man is a composite being, with a soul and a spirit besides a body. All three components of man carry the inherited stigma of the Fall. All three are depraved.

We cannot digress into an extended discussion of the body, soul, and spirit. Without being dogmatic or presenting our conclusions as though they had the force of doctrine, we will simply say there is good evidence that man's soul is the seat of emotion (understood as responses of self to the world around it). In the Bible, love is attributed to the soul, never to the body or the spirit (for example, see Luke 10:27). Also, there is good evidence that man's spirit is the seat of self-consciousness and of knowledge in general (1 Cor. 2:11). We infer from John's catalog of human lusts that the body is subject to wrong desires rooted in biological drives ("lust of the flesh"). The soul is subject to wrong emotional responses to the external world, as perceived through the eyes or the other senses ("lust of the eyes"). And the spirit is subject to devilish grasping for equality with God ("pride of life").

It must be understood that every lust is the perversion of a good desire. In the following spectrum of good desires, we show how each has gone awry through sin.

Bodily desires	Lusts of the flesh
desire for nourishment (necessary for    survival)	gluttony
desire for sexual fulfillment in marriage    (necessary for procreation)	desire for immoral sex
desire for physical comfort (necessary to    promote healthful rest)	aversion to activity, leading to laziness
desire for stimulation (necessary to sustain    useful activity)	thrill-seeking, risky behavior, a liking    for bizarre entertainment
desire for a sense of well-being (necessary to    curtail emotional excesses)	desire for drug-induced highs, leading to    substance abuse

All these would exist even if all five senses were shut off and all memory of the world were erased. But the following can exist only if the senses are turned on.

Desires of the soul	Lusts of the eyes
desire (reinforced by a liking for things) to have a    pleasing environment (the basis of a woman    wanting to make a nice home and of a man wanting    to turn his land into a garden)	covetousness for things and    property
desire (reinforced by brotherly love) to associate    with helpful and congenial companions (the basis of    friendship)	a cliquish mentality, leading to    neglect or rejection of anyone    apart from one's close friends
desire (reinforced by natural affection) to nurture    and be nurtured (the basis of family life)	a tribal mentality, leading to    disregard for the needs and rights    of outsiders
desire (reinforced by anger) to eliminate danger	malice toward those perceived    as a threat to oneself, leading to    wrath, hatred, and violence
desire (reinforced by fear) to escape from danger	panic, with irrational or    uncontrollable fear
desire (reinforced by sadness) to mourn a loss    (essential for adjusting to the change)	depression

All these are possessed by animals in some measure. But the following exist only in man.

Desires of the spirit	Pride of life
desire to look attractive (the foundation of taking    care of oneself)	vanity, overattention to grooming    and clothes
desire for approval (the foundation of obedience    to parents and to God)	compliance with social pressure to    do wrong
desire to regard self as a good person (the    foundation of a hunger for righteousness)	complacency about self, conceit,    and refusal to repent of sin

Besetting Sins

Individual differences: All Christians are capable of all sins all the time. Yet in struggling against the flesh, we do not all face the same battles. Our battles are different because our weaknesses are different. My flesh may attack me through desires that you can easily manage without falling into temptation, and vice versa. One man may be prone to laziness, another to lust. One woman may be a gossip, another a worrier. The sins that hang on to a person and become chronic are known as besetting sins, or vices. Although he resists them every day, he may never achieve a complete victory over them so long as he remains in the flesh.

Just as every lust is a perversion of some good desire, so every vice is the reverse side of a virtue. A bad temper tends to afflict the sort of person who is outstanding for drive and ambition, who knows how to get things done. A lustful person may be especially warm and affectionate. Someone prone to depression may be sensitive and thoughtful. The trick in combating a vice is to defeat it without hurting the related virtue.

A four-step strategy: The Bible says, "Confess your faults one to another" (James 5:16). The writer implies that if we do not know our faults, we should find them out. Self-knowledge is the essential first step in a successful campaign to overcome our besetting sins. Altogether there are four steps.

1. Admit the besetting sin. Be honest with yourself. See yourself the way others see you. If you are not sure what your besetting sins are, just ask the people who have known you a long time. They will tell you. And if they will not, the Holy Spirit will. He holds the mirror of conscience before our spiritual eyes so that we can see our sins. Therefore, any professing Christian who is neither aware of his besetting sins nor troubled with guilt about them should question whether the Spirit truly dwells within. He should examine his salvation. Many lost people do live in denial, however. I have known alcoholics who insisted they were social drinkers. And I have known people who thought their abusive rage was a reasonable response to other people's stupidity or unfairness. What atrocity done by men does not involve this sort of moral blindness?
2. Identify the trigger. Generally, a besetting sin is a habitual response to a particular set of conditions. You cannot control or change this response until you are able to see it coming, and to see it coming, you must know what conditions produce it.
3. Identify the sustaining circumstances. A sinful response generally alters the situation in such a way as to make self-correction difficult. To thwart this process, you need to understand it.
4. Substitute Biblical responses for sin. Exactly what we mean here will become clear as we discuss strategies for dealing with specific sins.

Anger

A bad temper perhaps escalating into full-blown rage is one of the most common vices among Christians. The four-step strategy that is useful against any vice is especially effective against anger.

1. Anger is one of the hardest vices for people to admit. A Christian man may take shelter under the excuse that his anger is righteous anger, directed against those who deserve it. He may also cite the text which condemns wrath only when it goes too far (Eph. 4:26). But in justifying himself, he is forgetting other texts (James 1:19-20). Yes, there are times when a parent must show displeasure with a child and administer discipline, but he should not discipline in anger (Eph. 6:4). Yes, there are evils in the world that infuriate a good man, yet the Lord says, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay" (Rom. 12:19), and He commands us to return good for evil (Rom. 12:21). How can we distinguish righteous from unrighteous anger? The rule is, righteous anger is always on behalf of someone else.
2. The trigger for anger is usually a sense of being wronged. Anger is a defense against a perceived attack. You feel that someone has hurt you, or insulted you, or deprived you of your rights, or failed to satisfy your demands, or resisted your will, or merely caused you inconvenience—and your instantaneous reaction is to fight back. The probability of an angry reaction depends on the general level of stress. The more stressed you are, the more likely you will explode in anger.
3. Once aroused, anger affects the situation so that the situation provokes more anger. This can happen in either of two ways. Some people are sadistic bullies whose anger feeds on vulnerability. When they see others react with fear and weakness, they get madder and more violent. They pull back only if they meet stiff resistance. Other people cannot stay mad unless they can see their provoker as an enemy—that is, they have to devalue and dehumanize and, in effect, hate the person they are angry with. It is easier to hate someone who fights back. A soft answer indeed turns away the kind of wrath that requires hate (Prov. 15:1).
4. Overcoming anger is basically learning how to think properly. The afflicted person must train himself to recognize triggering circumstances, and he must learn how to respond by going through a sequence of thoughts that will shut off his anger. The first thought should be, this is a temptation to get mad. Second, to please God I need to restrain wrath. Third, I need to practice forgiveness instead. Forgiveness is the Christian alternative to anger. The Bible exhorts us to forgive those we perceive as wrongdoers against us (Matt. 18:21-2). Forgive; don't get mad. If someone calls you a bad name, forgive him. If your wife burns the bacon, forgive her. Under provocation to anger, you may need to remind yourself why you should forgive. Forgive because you are a sinner too, a wrongdoer against others. You are no better than the person you are angry with. Anger generally has an element of pride and self-righteousness. Forgive also because God has forgiven you. If you refuse to forgive, you may lose God's forgiveness (Matt. 6:14-5; 18:35; Mark 11:25-6).

The people you know can help you by responding correctly to your anger. If you are a bully, they must resist you—firmly but without getting angry themselves. If your anger requires an antagonist, they must learn the technique of a soft answer.

Depression

Because of limited time, our discussion of other vices has to be abbreviated. The triggering cause of depression is generally a sense of loss or failure. A common sustaining cause is separation from other people. After falling into feelings of depression, the victim must not run away and hide. The natural tendency is to crawl under the covers. It is much better to stay around people, especially those with an encouraging outlook. But to prevent depression is easier than to stop it once it has begun. It is important to cultivate Biblical responses to failure and loss.

Failure in all its forms (whether in work or in personal relationships or in any other arena of life) engenders self-hatred, which is really anger directed inward. The remedy is the same as for any other kind of anger. It is forgiveness. The victim must accept God's love as sufficient grounds for loving and forgiving himself.

Grief at a disappointment or loss is normal, and it is not sinful so long as it is not excessive. The remedy is faith. Only by the discipline of praising God in the midst of apparent loss—praising Him in particular for the promise that all things work together for good in the life of His child (Rom. 8:28)—can a melancholy person avoid sinking into despair.

The depression that some people suffer seems divorced somewhat from the circumstances of life. It swings to an extreme totally out of proportion to any real trouble. Depression or manic-depression (now known as bipolar disorder) is generally regarded as a mental illness with a possible physical or chemical basis. But we must be careful. There has been a tendency in recent years to medicalize every undesirable emotion and behavior. The result has been an explosion of drug therapies that generate profit both for doctors, who are treating conditions they once considered outside their realm, and drug manufacturers. What is most profitable is not necessarily what is most appropriate.

But here we need not take a position on what depression really is. It is enough to say that depression is not God's will. He has ordained that every believer possess the fruit of the Spirit, including joy and peace (Gal. 5:22-3), neither of which can coexist with severe depression. Therefore, whatever factors may contribute to depression, we can be confident that God will take it away from any victim who submits to the requirements for healing. These are repentance and faith (James 5:13-6).

Lust

Here is a problem easy to understand. We all know what triggers and sustains lust. Therefore, we all know what to avoid. What we may not understand, however, is what to do when temptation takes us by surprise.

Over the years I have heard much dumb advice on how to deal with lust. One pastor said that when he went to the beach, he sang hymns to himself. But what was he doing at the beach, in the midst of temptation that God expected him to keep away from?

The proper strategy for defeating lust recognizes that there is a Christian alternative. Lust can take two forms: the kind that masquerades as love, and the kind that has no pretensions of love but actually prefers to depersonalize or idealize the object. The remedy for both kinds is the same—true love. We must train ourselves to look at provocative or fascinating people with the eyes of God. For example, a Christian man should look upon an immodest woman as somebody's wayward daughter, because to perceive her in this way effectively stirs up pity and compassion rather than lust. Such compassion comes easier to an older man who has daughters or granddaughters of his own. But even a younger man can care more for the soul of an immoral woman than for her body. Let him see her as a lost sister headed for hell. Let him focus on her foolishness instead of her face, her sad choice of self-destruction rather than her arts of self-advertisement.

Laziness

A disinclination to work seems especially common on the male side of the human race. The comic figure called the sluggard who appears frequently in the Book of Proverbs is a man or a boy (Prov. 6:6, 9; 10:26; 13:4; 20:4; 26:16). A boy's laziness may be a sign that he lacks strong fatherly direction, for research has established that a boy's achievement motivation depends mainly on what his father expects from him.

We are not accustomed to viewing laziness as a sinful response to triggering circumstances, but it is. The trigger is any sort of demand to work. The response is one of noncompliance, which may run the gamut from mild resentment to surly rebellion. A lazy person is basically a rebel. In the beginning, he is a rebel against his parents and teachers and other adults who try to impose work on him. In the end, he finds work distasteful not just because it is work, but also because of its past connections with authority. A Christian who tends to be lazy must come to terms with his real problem, which is rebellion and disobedience. When confronted with a demand to work, whether coming from another person or from his own sense of duty, he must substitute submissive action for uncooperative inaction.

Gossiping

Having discussed a problem prevalent among men, we must turn to a besetting sin of many women—gossiping. The Bible forbids this sin under the name "talebearing" (Lev. 19:16; Prov. 11:13; 18:8; 20:19; 26:20). The trigger is to learn some tidbit of news that should not be circulated. The sin is to pass it on. What should not be circulated? Anything false (Ex. 20:16). Anything harmful (James 3:8-10). Anything not edifying (Eph. 4:29). Anything that the people concerned view as private. The rightful judge of whether gossip is really gossip is not anyone doing the talking, but the persons being talked about.

If someone else approaches you with tantalizing but improper information, how should you respond? It is best to refuse hearing it, if possible. But if the gossiper catches you unawares and shares the unwanted news before you can protest, you must suspend belief and afterward keep the news to yourself. Don't believe it. Don't pass it on. Remember that there are two sides to any story. What seems totally believable in the mouth of a gossiper may look pretty foolish in the light of full truth.

Whether the gossip is true or false, you have a responsibility to tell the gossiper that he is sinning against the people concerned. You must exhort him either to keep silent or, if he is expressing a personal grievance, to handle it in a Biblical manner, by taking it directly to those who have offended him (Matt. 18:15-7). If the gossiper is unwilling to do right, and if the matter is serious, you must let the concerned people know about the gossip so that they can defend their reputations from further damage.

At the heart of our judicial system are two principles of justice: 1) a man is innocent until proven guilty, and 2) a man accused has the right to present the best possible case in his own defense. The standard of justice among Christians should be no less demanding than secular law.

Self-Centeredness

Although more encompassing than the other besetting sins we have considered, this also is a sin of the flesh that can be overcome through the same four-step strategy. Here, the trigger is any opportunity to meet someone else's needs rather than your own. Here, the sin is to turn away, and the remedy is not to turn away.

Yet, other-centeredness is more than a response to chance opportunities for doing good. It is a loving outlook that seeks to create such opportunities. It is living with a servant's heart. How do you get this?

1. Petition God for it.
2. Repent of any tendency you may have to feel contempt for people with problems. Do not justify your inaction by saying that your help is pointless because they need to help themselves.
3. Accept the discipline of a regular ministry to others. If you perform it faithfully, God will enlarge your love for those you serve.

The Secret to Victory

Any strategy for defeating the flesh is doomed to failure if it depends on a man's power of self-management. Victory requires a stronger power, and the only power that can tame the flesh is the Holy Spirit. Walking after the Spirit puts an end to walking after the flesh (Rom. 8:1-14). How is it possible to walk after the Spirit? In the lesson on finding God's will we defined this as living in obedience to God, motivated by love for God, all proceeding from a conscious dependence on the Spirit of God, all leading to a constant hunger for the will of God.