If you are a Christian, attempting to follow Jesus with the help of His
Holy Spirit, you should experience a certain measure of conflict in your
life. This conflict is between God’s nature and your human nature. You
see, as a Christian you have 2 natures within you, your sinful nature and
the nature of God, resulting in conflict. (Did you really think that
becoming a Christian was all about peace, joy and happiness?)
You may be a Christian, but you still live in a fallen world, and you
are still a fallen person. By fallen person I mean, you still have your
old human nature that fights against the nature of God.
It should be our desire to become more like Jesus. If so, then the Holy
Spirit will work in our lives to help us overcome our human nature. He
will take a couple of areas of our human nature at a time and work with
us. He won’t try to do change our whole life all at once. So this is not
an overwhelming process. So there is a measure of conflict in our lives
between God’s nature and our nature.
If you don’t experience this conflict then it is clear that you have
no desire to be like Jesus, and you are not allowing God’s Spirit to
help you overcome the fallen nature. You are too busy living for yourself,
not paying attention to the role of the Holy Spirit in your life.
So when our fallen nature responds to a situation in a negative way,
(it may simply be a bad thought), the Holy Spirit will speak to our hearts
and remind us that there is a better way to respond. This is the point of
conflict - God’s way versus our way. It is our choice to give into our
human nature or receive help from the Holy Spirit. He will give us the
ability at that moment to ignore our human nature. Once we submit to Jesus
in such matters a few times, we will overcome the flesh in that particular
area of our lives. Then the Holy Spirit will move on to the next
challenge. Thus we move from conflict to conflict, or from glory to glory
– whatever way you choose to view the process.