As Christians, we are in a war – Romans 13:14 hammers that truth home: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.”
When you go to war, you take provisions with you. You take exactly what you need to survive, and don’t burden yourself down with extras or useless or harmful things.
For instance, a soldier does not take Sweet Tarts and Tootsie Rolls for his source of food. He’d quickly starve to death! He’ll take high protein, complex foods that will sustain him for the long haul. He won’t take soda – it doesn’t satisfy. He’ll take pure water. He won’t take designer clothes – they wouldn’t serve any purpose on the battlefield. He doesn’t take Scrabble or Monopoly – they would just weigh him down.
So here, the image is clear: you’re going to war. Be careful what you take with you. Don’t burden yourself with extra things that you don’t need, useless things that aren’t effective, or harmful things that will only hurt you.
Very often, we entertain and play with sin. We wander into the movie store when we know we have a weakness for R-rated flicks. We casually buy a gallon of ice cream when we know we have a weight and self-control problem. We engage in a little “harmless” talk about a co-worker and ignore the fact that it is gossip.
If we follow this command, however, we will make no provision for our sin. We won’t do the things that set us up to fail. We won’t engage in activities that are dangerous. We won’t waste time and energy on things that are useless. And if we don’t, then the sin nature in us will starve to death … which is exactly what we want! We want to feed holiness and starve sin. We want to armor ourselves with Christ and provision ourselves to live holy lives, grinding sin into powder beneath our feet.
You can do it. I can do it. We can do it! God will never command the impossible. When we truly clothe ourselves with Christ, he makes love and holiness more than possible – he makes them a reality in our lives.