The struggles of life

<p>THE STRUGGLES OF LIFE</p> <p>Life holds many struggles for us and indeed life itself is a struggle, right from the start; we struggle to be born into this world, and then we struggle to overcome the many obstacles to survival and security and satisfaction. There are the natural or outer struggles that we all have to deal with that belong to the outward circumstances of our lives and they are always in front of us every day. And there are the spiritual or inner life struggles that challenge us to grow in faith and trust in God. Our life is a journey in which we learn to know the difference between the outward natural struggles and the inner spiritual struggles, and we learn to choose which are the struggles worth having and which are not. </p> <p>Many of the stories in the Bible in the Old Testament were preparing us for the understanding of the New Testament truth of having both the natural and the spiritual natures within us and how spiritual transformation by the work of the Holy Spirit is from the natural self that started with Adam into the Spiritual self that was given to us through Jesus – That is the message of the Gospel – Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith.</p> <p>Our natural self struggles with our spiritual self because both of these ‘selves’ have different desires. Galatians 5:17 the good things we want to do when the Spirit has his way with us are just the opposite of our natural desires. These two forces within us are constantly fighting each other to win control over us, and our wishes are never free from their pressures.</p> <p>One of these stories that is like a parable of the two selves within, the natural and the spiritual starts in Genesis chapter 25 with a struggle between twin boys, Jacob and Esau, who even at their birth appeared struggling to see who would be the first one to arrive into this world. The Bible says ‘First the natural and then that which is spiritual’ (1Corinthians 15:46). Esau was the first of the boys to be born but at the time of birth Jacob could be seen