How can I stop falling to the strong desires of my old life?

You are not alone in that battle. As children of God, none of us want to be guilty of fulfilling what Scripture calls “the lust of the flesh.” In our society, lust is most often thought of in connection with sexual immorality. But lust means “strong desire.” The lust of the flesh is simply the strong desire to follow after the ways of the world rather than God, in any area of our lives.

Take a quick inventory of your life since you became a Christian. Have you noticed a battle going on inside you? You want to do what’s right, but it seems difficult to overcome wrong desires.

That’s because you were created as a three-part being. You are a spirit, you have a soul (your mind, will and emotions), and you live in a body. When you accept Jesus as your Savior, your spirit is born again and receives new life. Your soul and body, however, remain the same until you do something to change them.

To change what happens with the impulses of the flesh and the response of the soul you need to know where the front lines of the battle are. In the struggle between the spirit and the flesh, your mind is the main battlefield because you will not do anything you have not thought about first. Proverbs 23:7 teaches us that what a man thinks about or meditates on is what he becomes. If Satan can keep your thoughts focused on ungodly things, he will have no trouble controlling you. Your actions will simply follow right in line with your thoughts.

In other words, you control who wins. What you give your attention to and think about the most will decide who wins. It’s as simple as that. “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think” (Romans 12:2).

Can you really change the way you think? Definitely. Simply read and spend time thinking about the written Word of God. Change doesn’t happen overnight. That’s why you need to make the quality decision to put the Word first place in your life on a daily basis.

There are other things you can do to undergird this new way of thinking. Spend time letting yourself hear the Word being ministered in power and stay away from negative music, movies, books and magazines. You will find that you have a different focus for your thoughts. Jesus, the Living Word, will become so real to you that your desires will change. You will be empowered to walk in newness of life and not fulfill the lust of the flesh!

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