The practical way to doing righteousness of God, without doing unrighteousness of the devil in this life: We go to the source to fight the sin, not to the body to resist it, which is an exercise in futility, because we will certainly fail by it:
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.
Trying to resist sin of the flesh by power of our own will, and thus will of the body, is fruitless, because there is no Spirit of grace with it: I.e. the righteousness of God not to walk after the flesh is not by the 'power of positive thinking', which is not walking after the Spirit, but rather by the strength and will of man, which only goes so far, and is not by the faith of Jesus that pleases God.
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
The source for sins of the flesh is lust
in the heart; therefore, we are called and commanded by the Spirit of Life of Christ to make spiritual war with the lust in the heart, that the sins of the body might be crucified once for all from within, no more to reign over the body without:
Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.
We don't fight from the outside in, but from the inside out.
A Pharisee is one who seeks the righteousness of God by his own will and power over the deeds of the body,
without first cleansing the heart of lust within: this is seeking to please God by his own works of righteousness, which are as filthy rags to God, not being by the faith of Jesus from the heart, which is the only thing that pleases God.
Those with outward works but not inward faith are still corrupted of lust in their heart, over which they appear to be righteous before men: Religious on the outside, still corrupt on the inside.
The double minded however, who count themselves wretched and not righteous, by the continued unrighteous deeds of the body, are vainly seeking to overcome those deeds
by force of will over the body, rather than by the Spirit of Life and law of Christ in the heart:
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
Believers are certainly responsible to work our own salvation with fear of the Lord, but neither are we taught to do so by the power of our own will over the body, which is not by the might of the Spirit of grace and of life:
Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.
Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it.
The sincerely double minded, that are honest with themselves about their wretched state, must first learn not to fight flesh with flesh, but to fight the sins of the flesh with the Spirit of Life and of grace:
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
So, here is the utterly practical new adn living way according to Scripture, to overcoming double mindedness and sinful deeds of the body, while vainly yet seeking to serve the Lord in the mind alone:
1. Submit ourselves to God: Submit our warfare against sins to Him.
2. Submit our petition for deliverance to Him in prayer
with faith, that he surely will perform it.
3. Believe He will answer our prayer and cry for help, but not by our devices, but rather by His grace to help in time of need.
4. God by His law of Christ and of the Spirit written in our heart, will cut out the lust of besetting sin from our hearts, so that we no longer desire that sin in our hearts: we will then see our desire for deliverance and His mighty salvation, to purify our heart from the lust, no longer desiring to commit sin in the flesh.
5. Once we see His salvation working in our heart, that by the Sword of the Spirit the lust is cut off at the roots and cast down and out,
then and only then can we win the full victory in Christ: we then begin
to endure temptation and not fall to sin, by warring victoriously over the devil crouching at the door to enter back into the heart.
6. Such overcoming saints, not by will and strength of man, nor by righteous works of their own, now find themselves battling sin at the door of the mind from the outside looking to get in, no longer by wrestling with lust that is still in the heart on the inside, that certainly will come out to sin from time to time.
7. Once we have purified our hearts of lust by the might of God's Spirit with help of His great grace, then we are overcomers
enduring temptation of the flesh from the outside looking in, no longer double minded sinners being defeated by the lust of the devil planted in the heart.
Conclusion: Repent of double mindedness to God from the heart, pray for God to deliver us from lust in the heart, and once delivered of sin desired from the heart, make war with the desire for sin from the flesh: Kill it at the door where it walks about roaring to get in again:
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
The double minded vainly fight to
rule over sin in the body, while sin's desire and lust remains in the heart.
Overcomers repenting of all such double mindedness, then fight victoriously over outcast sin lying in wait at the door of the heart, which is the mind.
Only overdcomers, whose hearts are purged of lust by God, are them that endure temptation at the door, without doing sin in the body.
Them going on in their trespasses are not enduring temptation to sin at the door, but are subjected to sins by lust in the heart: 'Struggling' with lust in the heart is vain in defeat, and is not
enduring the trial of temptation at the door.
This the Scripturally practical way to overcoming wretched double mindedness, if we see lust for besetting sins in the heart, and find in are members a law for sin and death, while vainly seeking to overcome it by will-power alone: Struggling with sins, not enduring temptation and overcoming sins.
Repent, pray, see, and do: See lust cut off at the roots by the law of Christ, and now fight the good fight of faith at the door, to keep thought and desire for sin on the outside, never again to enter in as lust in the heart.
The best defense is a great offense, which we fight against the devil lurking at the door from the outside, once His lust has been cut off and cast away from the inside.
And do not at all fall to the devil's device of asking us to think of
the rest of our lives, as an enduring battle against him at the door without rest, because that is not so: there remains a rest
in this life for the overcoming people of God, who fight not with flesh and blood, but with the Spirit of life to purify our heats of lust and cleanse our hands of sins:
Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
So, keep fighting the good fight against desire for sin at the door, once purged of lust from the heart, one day at a time with the Lord, not worrying about tomorrow or the days following, which we will then take care of at that time, even as we do today.
