The tragedy of friendly fire

Of all the horrors of war, one of the most tragic to me is “friendly fire”. This is the expression used when weapon fire from your own side accidentally causes injury or death to your fellow soldiers. I’ve never served in the military, so I can only imagine the agony which must occur in soldiers when they realize that they’ve hit their own troops.

Studies have shown that there are several causes for “friendly fire”. There is the confusion inherent in battle (aka “fog of war”). There are “errors of position”, in which you’re aiming for the enemy, but you miss and accidentally hit your own side. But perhaps the hardest cause to accept are “errors of identification”, in which your own troops are deliberately targeted because they’ve been mis-identified as the enemy.

I wish that such traumatic mistakes were limited to military scenarios. Sadly, however, they are a part of our everyday lives, as I know all too well.

In last month’s post entitled “Out with the Old, In with the New”, I shared the misery and futility of my life as a young Christian when I was trying to obey Jesus in the old way of the Old Covenant (i.e. doing my human best to keep the letter of each law) rather than the new way of the New Covenant (i.e. letting the indwelling Spirit guide and empower my new heart). If you haven’t read that post yet, I invite you to do so now and then return to reading here.

I was consumed by my sin as a young Christian. It felt like the truest thing about me. So when I read Jeremiah 17:9 (“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?”, NKJV), I was very ready to believe that the reason that I struggled so much to live as a Christian was because I was rotten at the core.

It all seemed so simple to me back then: I constantly sinned because the truest thing about me was that I had a desperately wicked and deceitful heart. I sinned all the time because that was my core identity – “sinner”.

I loathed my heart for being so weak, corrupt, and incredibly disappointing to the Lord. I cast stone after stone at myself – stones of shame, self-contempt, and bitter self-recrimination. Friendly fire? No, there was nothing “friendly” about the invective I was spewing toward my own heart.

I loved God. But I hated myself.

I was eternally forgiven and saved. But in so many ways, I was still such a lost sheep. Oh, how I needed rescue.

But oh, what a Savior! Jesus found me in my wanderings and gently delivered me back into the sheepfold of His life-giving grace and hope-inspiring truth. How did He do it?

As I described in last month’s post, the Lord helped me understand that my core identity is not “sinner”, but “new creation in Christ”. I came to learn that my heart (which in the Bible is our core self, i.e. who we really are) is no longer deceitful and desperately wicked as it was before I was saved. Now, because our Great High Priest has included us in the blessings of the New Covenant, our hearts have been made new (Ezekiel 36:26-27). The truest part of us genuinely longs to please God (Philippians 2:13). Praise Him!

But this Good News still leaves us with an unanswered question: if our hearts (our true selves) have been made new and eagerly desire to obey God, then why do we still sin? The Bible gives a clear answer: we still have something called “the flesh”.

Before defining what the flesh is, let’s be clear on what it’s not. When the Scriptures refer to “the flesh” as that within us which is opposed to the Spirit and our souls (as in Romans 8:5-8 and 1 Peter 2:11), it is NOT referring to our physical bodies. How do we know this? Galatians 5:24 say that we’ve “crucified the flesh”. Romans 8:9 says that we “are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.” These verses make no sense if we consider the flesh to be our physical bodies.

What is the flesh not? It is not our physical bodies.

Oh, what harm has come to so many believers down through the ages as we have developed a deep, unbiblical antipathy toward the good bodies God has made for us. We’ll talk more about this in a future blog post.

So what is the flesh? The “flesh” is our instinctive pattern of living apart from Christ. It is our natural wiring, the behavior we default to whenever we “react” without depending on Jesus. The works of the flesh include not only the “obvious” sins, but also the subtler ways in which we attempt to manipulate people, control circumstances, depend on our defense mechanisms rather than trust Jesus, and indulge ourselves for comfort. It’s the powerful force within us that desperately wants us to keep living the way we always have rather than “take the risk” of living in the new way of the Spirit. It’s been called “the operating system of our old self”. It’s the urge to follow the old, well-worn path of depending on our own schemes rather than trusting Jesus.

Listen to how Paul talks about the flesh in Romans 7:18a, 20: “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh … Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.” Paul makes an incredibly compelling point here. When we sin, it’s not our true self (“I”, the new person we now are in Jesus) who does it, but the sinful flesh that still dwells in us. In saying this, he is drawing a clear line between our flesh and our new self (our new heart). Romans 7:14-25 is best understood as describing the epic battle between the flesh (enticed by evil) and the new heart (empowered by the Spirit).

What is the flesh not? It is not our physical bodies, nor our new hearts.

Hallelujah, what a Savior! What a difference this truth has made in my life.

I see my core identity today not as “sinner”, but “new creation in Christ”. This is the truest thing about me. I still sin, of course. But when I do so, I realize that it’s because I’ve temporarily succumbed to my flesh’s old ways of thinking and reacting. Even then, however, I know that deep down inside, this is not what I really want. My new heart (my true self) eagerly longs to love and obey Jesus. And with His help, I hope to make a better choice next time.

I still experience “friendly fire” in my own life. There are still times when I lash out against my heart, my body, my mind, or the memory of my younger self. But those times are becoming fewer and fewer. I’m seeing the real enemy more clearly now. I’m much more aware of Satan’s schemes. God is helping me to not point my weapons at myself, but at the one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

I love God, more now than ever. And now that I’m no longer targeting my heart as the enemy, I’m learning to accept, appreciate, and maybe even enjoy the person He’s making me to be.

Friendly fire is a killer. Jesus offers truth which is so much better. Let’s embrace it.

Written by Don Reynard

Of Brains-on-Sticks and Precious Jars

Out with the old, in with the new

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