Fight or Flight?

Did you know God prepared your body -- and your spirit -- to overcome trouble by fight or flight? In medical terms, the sympathetic nervous system is that part of the involuntary nervous system, beyond our voluntary control, that helps us get out of trouble. It’s sometimes called the “Fight or Flight” response because it’s designed to help us fight – i.e. to resist an attacker, or to take flight. – i.e. to run away if we sense that the enemy is too powerful and that we’d be better off escaping than trying to fight back.

Whether our best response to trouble is to fight or to flee, God designed our bodies to be able to respond physically to either challenge – and a brilliant design it is! (Psalm 139:14)

But as Christians, our main battles are not in the physical realm, but in the spiritual (Ephesians 6:12). Just as God designed us with a built-in mechanism to protect our physical body from attack, He also gave us a spiritual “fight or flight” mechanism to help us resist spiritual attack, as explained in His Word.

The three enemies of our spirit are the devil, the flesh, and the world. The Bible tells us to fight or resist the devil (James 4:6-8; 1 Peter 5:6-9), to flee temptation that would cause us to yield to our fleshly desires (1 Corinthians 10:1-14; James 4:4), and to separate ourselves from the world, loving God instead of worldly pleasures and powers (1 John 2:15-17; Ephesians 2:1-9).

Although we must resist, or fight against, the devil, we must flee temptation. Specific evils the Bible warns us to flee from are fornication (1 Corinthians 6:18), idolatry (1 Corinthians 10:14), greed or love of money (1 Timothy 6:10), and envy and arguments (1 Timothy 6:4-5).

The Bible has numerous examples of people who gave in to these evils rather than fleeing from them, with disastrous results. Nonetheless, we can thank God that these are recorded in His Word, both as a warning to us and as a reassurance that we are not alone in facing these struggles. Temptation in general, and these specific temptations, are common to the fallen human condition because of our sin nature. But God promises us an escape from every temptation:

1 Corinthians 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.

Paul often uses the metaphor of the Christian life being like a fight or warfare of the soldier going into battle (1 Timothy 6:12; 2 Timothy 4:7), as in the hymn “Onward Christian soldiers.” Our sin nature is still a force we must do battle with even after we are saved. That sinful spirit is still there, creating lust, which causes us to want more than we need and should have. In turn, that lust causes us to envy those who we think have more than we do, which leads to fighting and war (James 4: 5-6). Only by the grace of God, Who indwelled us with His Holy Spirit when we were saved, can we restrain our sin nature and break this vicious circle.

Resisting the devil involves drawing close to God and humbly recognizing that in our own "strength" we are nothing, but that He has already won the battle for us (1 Samuel 17:47; Jeremiah 17:5-8; Psalm 44, 4-8; Psalm 55: 22).

Satan tries to attack us through the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life (Genesis 3:6). If we have pride in and confidence in our own flesh, that pride is misplaced and foolish, and we are bound to fail because God will only make His power available to us when we yield to Him completely and humbly (Ephesians 6:10:10; 1 John 4:4)

To resist the devil, we must also put on the whole defensive armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18) and use the sword of the Lord -- His Holy Word -- to fight the devil and watch him flee! (Matthew. 4:5-11; James 2:19; 1 John 4:4). The secret to successful combat with Satan and his minions is to grab hold of God and refuse to let Him go! If we seek God in earnest, fervent prayer, He will bless us richly!

Prayer is the safest method of replying to words of hatred. The Psalmist prayed in no cold-hearted manner, he gave himself to the exercise—threw his whole soul and heart into it—straining every sinew and muscle, as Jacob did when wrestling with the angel. Thus, and thus only, shall any of us speed at the throne of grace. Charles Spurgeon: Evening by Evening, January 15.

Praise God that He provides us with an escape from every temptation and with armor to withstand every one of Satan’s attacks! May we realize that the battle is the Lord’s, and put our trust in Him alone!