1 Cor 9:27 - but I
buffet my body and make it my slave, lest possibly, after I have preached to
others, I myself should be disqualified.
One of the main reasons so many Christians fail
to live consistently holy and clean before the Lord, which all true Christians
will intensely desire to do, is because they have not practiced the principle
of “buffeting their body and making it their slave” as the Apostle Paul
practiced and taught in 1 Cor 9:27.
We have to understand that even though we’ve
become a new creature in Christ and have been indwelled by His Holy Spirit, the
flesh and it’s carnal appetites will still desire to be satisfied within us and
must be steadfastly subdued by walking in the Spirit and denying its ungodly
impulses. It’s a walk of faith. Christ has stripped the power of the flesh over
us and given us everything we need pertaining to life and godliness, but we
must still walk that out by faith.
Why faith? Because true faith in God will
recognize the incomparable freedom and benefits of holiness and righteousness
compared against the degrading, enslaving nature of sin. Enough so that
whenever a fleshly urge rises up within us, intensely wanting to be satisfied,
we say “NO! You no longer have any dominion over me and I will not
indulge you!...consider yourself denied!”.
You will be amazed at how quickly the temptation
dissipates when you do this every time with determination. Resist the Devil and
he will flee from you…...
We may not “feel” like doing this in the heat of
the temptation, but the quality of our faith is PROVEN in that
moment….everything leads up to the test. True faith is never passive, it is
very active and must be purposely exercised the life of the believer. This is
why the Apostle James said “I will show you my faith BY MY WORKS”. Faith
without works is considered “dead”. Some teach that faith is purely a gift and
we don’t have any control over it, this is false. Faith is a gift AND a
responsibility, it is given in measure, and then WE are held responsible to
exercise it and build upon it. This is why we are commanded to “build yourself
up in your most holy faith…” this is why it says in Hebrews “The just shall
LIVE by faith, and IF ANY MAN shrinks back, my soul will have NO pleasure in
him”.
Jesus makes an interesting statement in Luke
when he says “When the son of man returns, will he find faith in the earth?”
Will he find a people that have so committed themselves, in faith, to being
like Him and being changed and conformed into His image, that they’ve learned
how to “buffet their body and make it their slave”.
