A very real conflict is still going on in each one of us between our old Adam and our new man in Christ. The battle is being waged all the time. This is a good reason for being careful about picking our battles. A noble cause is certainly worth going to war over. Jesus fought a noble battle against the self-righteous hypocrisy of the Pharisees. Of course, Jesus is God’s Son—a perfect and righteous person. His conflicts were always righteous. Sinners like us would only be fooling ourselves to think that all of our conflicts are truly as altruistic and honorable as the ones Jesus fought. In fact, the opposite is more likely to be true. Most of the battles you and I wage are aimed at serving ourselves. We may do a good job of masking our underlying purposes, but upon closer examination, we are likely to discover that ego and self will have had a lot of influence in our battles.
Understanding this sinner/saint (old Adam/new man in Christ) nature of every Christian is especially helpful for understanding conflict. No matter how you slice it, all Christians are in the same boat in at least this one respect: We are all works in progress. But because Christ Jesus 7 has taken up residence in our hearts and the power of God’s Holy Spirit is working in our lives, the saintly new man is in control . . . most of the time.
On the other hand, our new man in Christ may not always be in control. (And here’s the sticking point.) When conflict strikes and we engage the enemy, the likelihood that our new man will be able to remain in charge decreases.
You’ve heard of the phenomenon that adversely affects decisions made in the heat of war. Military experts refer to this as the fog of battle. Well, this mysterious syndrome has a spiritual parallel that kicks in whenever we are engaged in the heat of a spiritual battle. Even without the element of hatred, our spiritual perspective can easily become confused under battle conditions. In the environment of conflict, the old man sees an opening for putting himself back in the driver’s seat. Just when we need to keep our eyes focused on Jesus, we tend to stop following his model and revert back to our old-Adam instincts.
In his book on Christian conflict resolution, Alfred Poirier writes, “We must understand that the conflicts people are in are conflicts in people—conflicts of desires, demands, and idols. These are true strongholds that are impregnable except through the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it is this gospel that we were called to preach and teach.”10 While you and I zealously confess our faith in the Lord Jesus and his saving gospel, we are far from having immunity from this world’s conflicts. Even when we are trying to help other Christians work through their personal conflicts,11 we must be aware of the dark and ugly things that Christians are capable of thinking and doing when driven by their old Adam. And we need to apply that same awareness to ourselves, lest we become tangled up in some of the same sins.
Excerpt from Heart At Peace: Biblical Strategies for Christian Conflict, 2014 Northwestern Publishing House. All rights reserved.