The Flesh or the Spirit: How Do You Actually Choose?

← Leadership Thoughts

So far in this series we have said that grace meets us in our sin, and that sin interrupts our fellowship with God without ever threatening our place as His children. Now we come to the question that decides how the rest of your week actually goes. There are two ways to live, and every day you choose between them. Paul calls them the flesh and the Spirit.

Galatians 5:16 to 17 says: “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh.” (NIV) There is a genuine tug of war going on inside every believer. The question is not whether the pull exists. The question is which one you feed.

What the Flesh Actually Is

We need to be clear about the word, because the flesh is not simply your body, and it is not just the obvious vices. The flesh is the old, self-reliant principle in us that wants its own way apart from God. It is the part of me that says I will run my life on my own terms, thank you, I will meet my own needs my own way. Sometimes it shows up as an addiction. Just as often it shows up as pride, control, self-pity, or the quiet decision to trust myself instead of God.

Romans 8:5 to 6 draws the line sharply. Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires, and that way of thinking leads to death. Those who live according to the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires, and that leads to life and peace. Notice the word set. This is about what your mind is fixed on. What you keep looking at, you eventually feed.

Grace Is the Power, Not Just the Pardon

Here is where a lot of us have got stuck. We think grace is only about being forgiven, so when it comes to actually changing, we fall back on willpower. Try harder. Grit your teeth. And willpower, on its own, always loses to the flesh eventually. It is the wrong engine.

Grace is not only the pardon for sin. It is the power over it. Titus 2:11 to 12 says the grace of God has appeared, and it teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright lives. Grace teaches. Grace trains. Grace supplies from the inside what willpower could never manufacture from the outside. This is the whole point of the New Covenant. God does not just forgive the old heart, He gives you a new one and puts His own Spirit inside you. So overcoming the flesh is not you straining to be good. It is you learning to draw on a power that already lives in you.

Andrew Wommack teaches this through what he calls the reality of spirit, soul, and body. Your spirit, the part of you reborn in Christ, is already complete and righteous. The change you are after is not manufacturing a new nature by effort, it is letting the life already in your spirit work its way out through a renewed mind. Dr Jim Richards makes a similar point from a slightly different angle, that lasting change happens in the heart and not merely the head, and that grace is the empowerment that reaches the heart where willpower never can.

You do not defeat the flesh by fighting harder in your own strength. You defeat it by trusting grace and feeding the Spirit, until the appetite itself begins to change.

The Man Who Could Not Beat It Alone

Let me tell you about someone I walked alongside. He loved God. He was serving, showing up, doing the right things on the outside. And for years he was in bondage to pornography. He hated it. He tried everything the willpower approach offers. Accountability apps, promises, shame, resolve. He would white-knuckle it for a while, then fall again, and each fall drove him further into the belief that he was hopeless.

What finally broke it was not trying harder. It was a change of engine. He stopped fighting the flesh with the flesh and started trusting grace to do what his effort never could. He learned to keep choosing the things of the Spirit and to stop feeding the flesh. He changed his inputs, he stopped feeding the appetite through his eyes and his idle hours, and he started feeding his spirit through the Word, worship, honest community, and prayer. Slowly, and it was slow, the craving lost its power. Not because he became stronger, but because grace changed what he wanted. Today he is free. Not perfect, free. And he will tell you the difference was grace, not grit.

How You Actually Choose the Spirit

So how do we choose a life in the Spirit in practice? It is rarely one dramatic decision. It is a hundred small ones. Here is how I understand the choosing, and we will go deeper on the tools next week.

First, set your mind. Romans 8 says the battle is decided in where your mind is fixed. What you focus on, you feed, and what you feed grows stronger. So guard your inputs. What you watch, read, scroll, and listen to is not neutral. It is either feeding the flesh or feeding the Spirit.

Second, sow deliberately. Galatians 6:8 says whoever sows to the flesh will reap destruction, but whoever sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life. Every choice is a seed. The time in the Word, the moment of worship in the car, the honest conversation, the prayer you nearly skipped, these are seeds sown to the Spirit. They compound.

Third, depend rather than strive. This is the paradox Paul lived. He worked hard, and yet he said it was not him but the grace of God working through him. You show up and make yourself available, and God’s ability shows up through your availability. It is not passive, and it is not white-knuckle. It is trusting effort.

Fourth, do not do it alone. The flesh loves secrecy. Bringing things into the light, with people you trust, drains the power out of them. Almost no one overcomes a besetting sin entirely on their own, and God never intended us to.

Questions to Sit With

Honestly, when I am trying to change, am I relying on willpower or on grace? What is the evidence?

What am I currently feeding, and what am I starving? What do my inputs reveal about which one I am strengthening?

Where do I need to bring something out of secrecy and into the light so its power over me is broken?