Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Matthew 26:41
Victory over sexual sin doesn’t come just spiritually, and it doesn’t come with human effort alone. Your victory isn’t all up to God, and it isn’t all up to you, either. To forsake pornography and any other sexual sin, you require a willing spirit and a subdued body.
When the disciples fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus rebuked them for having willing spirits but unwilling bodies. Jesus asked the disciples to stay awake and to watch with Him as he prayed. But they fell asleep. Their spirits wanted to stay awake, but their bodies wanted to sleep. Their bodies won the battle, they fell asleep, and they disobeyed their Lord.
The lesson for you and me is that we must bring our bodies into subjection if we are to obey our Lord. We must subdue them, discipline them, make them do what we want them to do, if we are to get victory over pornography, masturbation and all other sins that involve our bodies (and our minds). Wanting to quit porn in spirit isn’t enough. Desiring to abstain from masturbation is insufficient. Sexual purity requires a willing spirit and a subdued body. As Watchman Nee notes when discussing this episode in the lives of the disciples:
“What can a willing spirit do if the flesh is weak? The spirit may be willing, but the flesh wants sleep. Yet this would be just as useless, of course, were the spirit to be unwilling with the flesh still wanting sleep. It is not enough simply to have a willing spirit; the body needs to be equally willing. If the latter is unwilling and falls to sleep, this shows that it has not been subdued. The unyieldedness of the body renders the willing spirit ineffective.”
The Character of God’s Workman by Watchman Nee
When you sense your body is tempting you to sin sexually, discipline it, buffet it to bring it into bondage (1 Corinthians 9:27). When your spirit is willing and your body is under your control, you win. And you please your Lord.
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