A4P Guest: In one of your recent posts, you said, “a born-again Christian man who is free from sexual struggles is found in a cemetery or in heaven.” That means he is nowhere to be found on earth. What do you mean when you said “struggle”? The word “struggle” is defined as: a long effort to do, achieve, or deal with something that is difficult or that causes problems. Are you referring to the new created man (born-again) person having sexual struggle? Does the new born-again Christian have such continuous struggle with sin? If we are born of God, we could not commit sin. The seed in us is new. The born again person has no appetite for sin. There is, of course, a level of maturity in Christianity but a new born-again and matured Christian man never ever struggles with sin. 1 john 5:18 says, “We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the One who was born of God keeps them safe, and the evil one cannot harm them.” We are Spirit filled. Our old mind is renewed by the Spirit of God. If we are always under struggle what is the purpose of the Spirit in us?

A4P: (Thank you for giving me permission to address your question on the page. Bless you!)

First, yes, I was referring to the born-again Christian man when I wrote that post because a person who is not in Christ doesn’t have any sexual struggles. If he wants to have sex, he just goes and does it with anyone he desires. He actually doesn’t have any choice except following his sinful desires. So, the only person who has sexual struggles is a born-again Christian person whose body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. It is good to get this before we move on to the next one.

Second, sexual struggle means struggle with the temptation to sin against God in the area of sex. I’m not sure if you mix up the word “struggle” with “living in sin.” Struggle, “to advance with violent effort,” means to go against something to achieve a goal in mind. In this context, the goal is sexual purity. Sexual purity doesn’t fall on a man from heaven; he fights for it 24/7 violently to make it his own; sometimes he is successful and sometimes he is not. When he yields to the temptation, Holy Spirit convicts him of his sin and the man confesses and forsakes his sin, gets washed by the blood of Jesus and starts all over again, “for though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again,” (Proverbs 24:16a) – He rises up again even if he falls! If he is born of God, he doesn’t “live in sin”. (Here you will see clearly one of the roles of Holy Spirit in our life.)

This falling, rising and starting all over again is called “struggling”.

The author of the Book of Hebrew puts it this way: “In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” (Hebrew 12:4) – Yeap, struggling with sin to the point of shedding blood.

Third, I am not sure what you mean when you said, “If we are born of God, we could not commit sin. The seed in us is new. The born again person has no appetite for sin.”

My dearest, our “appetite to sin” won’t go anywhere until we die. Sin-stricken body of ours is always with us. We carry it everywhere we go. When we are born into the Kingdom of God, our spirit is quickened by the Spirit of God and we become alive for God. With our new birth, we receive a different “appetite,” an appetite or a desire to live for the glory of God; to live in righteousness.

Our appetite to sin against God is killed by our spiritual appetite to live for God. That means the appetite we give ourselves to wins and marks our life (Romans 6:16; 2 Peter 2:19). This is not a “one-shot deal” but a lifetime process. As our mind gets “renewed” by the Word (Romans 12:2), we go from one glory to another glory (2 Corinthians 3:18). Through it all, we grow and mature. For example, what used to put us down last year doesn’t put us down anymore. When we get to the point where we don’t have any struggle, we will be in heaven at His presence.

So, the Word of God advises us this way: “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. . . Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Galatian 5:16, 24) – If you read the whole chapter of Galatians 5 & Romans 7, you will see that there is a constant war raging inside of us, war between our flesh and spirit.

That being said, “a born-again matured Christian never ever struggles with sin” is not a biblical truth.

Fourth, “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.” (1 John 3:9) doesn’t mean a Christian doesn’t sin; it just means a Christian doesn’t live in sin. It doesn’t also mean a Christian won’t have a struggle; it just means a Christian passes from one struggle to another as he grows into his full spiritual potential to live in holiness and purity (sanctification) for the glory of God.

If I’m not mistaken, I addressed all the issues you raised. If there is something that is not clear here, let me know. But before I let you go, let me say this:

The most disasters thing in a born-again Christian man’s life is not that he is struggling with (or fighting against) sexual sin/temptation; but that he stops fighting against it; that he stops waging war against his fleshly sinful sexual desires to claim his sexuality freedom he has in Christ Jesus. ///