The War Within

I came across these links that I thought were very good at discussing the war between the flesh and the spirit. I thought it was pretty funny that the one by John Piper had the same title as this post (it wasn't intentional!).

1. This discusses the conflict of the two natures and different ideas of who Paul was talking about (I myself thought it was pretty obvious Paul was talking about himself as a normal Christian struggling and didn't realize there were other interpretations -- I'll take some comfort that my assumption agrees with Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Piper, etc):

http://preceptaustin.org/romans_714-25.htm#excursus

2. This discusses flesh in believers (there's more on the page, but that's what I was interested in):

http://preceptaustin.org/romans_85.htm#4b

At least read through what Ray Stedman has to say. I haven't heard of him before, but I was pretty impressed. He apparently has sermons available as podcasts from iTunes, so I'll have to check those out now.

3. This one is from John Piper on parts of Galatians 5 and walking in the Spirit:

http://www.soundofgrace.com/piper83/061983m.htm

If you are going to only read through one of the links, read this last one -- its great!

"Praise God for the war within! Serenity in sin is death. The Spirit has landed to do battle with the flesh. So take heart if your soul feels like a battlefield at times. The sign of whether you are indwelt by the Spirit is not that you have no bad desires, but that you are at war with them!"