Bruce Weatherly
Mar 27, 2026
Christians go through spiritual warfare. It’s an everyday internal thing. It involves the mind, emotions and will. It usually takes the form of bothersome, tormenting thoughts that cause really bad feelings and temptations. Often the temptations are to take control in some ungodly way that brings a temporary feeling of relief. The two main sources of temptation and spiritual warfare are the sin nature and the devil. The devil joins forces with and comes through our sin nature.
Christians still have a sin nature that is alive and well inside of them. It’s there, and it wants control. It is often the loudest voice, but it is not the deepest. As Christians, it is no longer who we are. Jesus living inside of us in the person of the Holy Spirit is who we are now. The Holy Spirit is now the controlling one inside of us, not the sin nature. Experiential freedom from the control of the sin nature happens as we come to believe and count upon the facts that the Holy Spirit lives inside of us and will be filling and controlling us as we simply yield, as we just live. We just live because we believe what Scripture says, because we believe that the Holy Spirit living inside of us will indeed be filling and controlling us as a way of life. This is living by the Spirit by faith. This is why Paul says in Galatians 5:16… “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” When Jesus said in John 8:31-36 that disciples of His will come to know the truth, and the truth will set them free, this is the truth He was talking about.
The only way Christians can live holy lives is by walking by the Spirit by faith. The lack of teaching about this, and the lack of its emphasis in the pulpits, seminaries and Sunday schools, is why we see so many leading Christian personalities experiencing moral failure. They lose the spiritual battle because they have not been taught, they have not heard enough, it has not been emphasized enough by their own teachers, the truth of living by the Spirit. The church in America is not in a doctrinal crisis, but we are in an emphasis crisis.
“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” John 10:27 (NIV)
“When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” John 10:4-5 (NIV)
Strangers’ voices are those that come from the sin nature and the devil and his “messengers” (2 Corinthians 12:7). We don’t need to know whether the voice is our sin nature or one of Satan’s messengers. Both are strangers’ voices. Our sin nature and the devil are both strangers. All we need to know is that it is a stranger’s voice. Strangers’ voices are those that disturb peace. Strangers’ voices are those of fear and doubt. They are temptations to try to control, especially in the form of insisting on understanding. They are the voices of temptation to self-interestedly turn inward upon ourselves, and because of fear, think compulsively until we are emotionally worn out. Strangers’ voices keep us wrapped up in self and fretting so that we are not available to others.
Spiritual life is just living and not listening to strangers’ voices. We can learn to recognize strangers’ voices and we can become able to not listen to them. I was enslaved to strangers’ voices for many years, as a Christian. The world and the worldly are enslaved to strangers’ voices, controlled by them, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient (Ephesians 2:2). Life is just living, confident of and counting upon the fact that the indwelling Holy Spirit will indeed be filling, controlling and living through as I do so. The result is freedom, freedom from sin as a way of life, freedom from the law, and free “indeed” (John 8:36), freedom to just live and be myself and be a whole person because I’m controlled by the Spirit now, not the sin nature. Life is just living and not listening to strangers’ voices.
“You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.” Romans 8:9-10 (NIV).
Thanks for reading,
Bruce
bruceweatherly.com
