The Enemy Within

I’m in a note-reviewing kind of mode. Can you tell?

🙂

Here are some quotes from Kris Lundgaard’s (excellent!) book, The Enemy Within:

‘That raises the question, ‘In what sense has Christ defeated sin in the believer?’ The answer is that he has overthrown its rule, weakened its power, and even killed its root so that it cannot bear the fruit of eternal death in a believer. Still—and this is amazing but true—sin is sin; its nature and purpose remain unchanged; its force and success still grab us by the throat.’

‘Believers are the only people who ever find the law of sin at work in them. Unbelievers can’t feel it. The law of sin is a raging river, carrying them along; they cannot measure the force of the current, because they have surrendered themselves to it and are borne along by it. A believer, on the other hand, swims upstream—he meets sin head-on and strains under its strength.’

Are you living in ignorance as to your own heart? ‘Most would rather give in to sin than go through the painful work of picking up a cross and nailing their flesh to it.’

The better you know your sin and the extent you hate it? That’s the extent (and no farther!) you will ‘grasp for grace against it.’

‘Never think for a minute that the war against sin is over in this life.’

‘If you violently war against your flesh, you’ll win ground. It will grow weak and you’ll grow in grace into the image of Christ.’

‘When God’s grace changes our nature, it doesn’t change the nature of the flesh. It conquers it, weakens it, mortally wounds it, so that we are no longer Captain Ahabs by nature; yet his defiant malice smolders in our flesh.’

‘Which is easier: to sit with a bucket of butter-soaked popcorn and watch Tom Cruise on the big screen for two hours, or kneel and pray for five minutes? Hands down because there is literally no competition. What the flesh hates is God, so it resists anything that smacks of God—especially communion with him.’