The Triumphant Churchthat war in YOUR MEMBER?
2 YE LUST, and have not: ye kill, and desire to
have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet
ye have not, because ye ask not.
3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss,
that ye may consume it upon YOUR LUSTS.
According to Vine's Expository Dictionary of New
Testament Words^1 , the word "lust" is also translated
pleasures. Lusts are "pleasures" of the flesh. Pleasures
of the flesh aren't demons or evil spirits.
The Holy Spirit uses the believer and his
personality and body to work acts of righteousness
(Phil. 2:13). The devil can also use the believer and his
fleshly, carnal nature and the pleasures of his flesh to
influence him to work acts of unrighteousness and
disobedience.
That's why you can't just call all lusts of the flesh
"an evil spirit" or "a devil." Lusts can also be the
"pleasures" of the flesh. When a person gets saved, even
though his spirit is recreated, his body still wants to go
right on fulfilling the pleasures of the flesh just as it did
before he got saved.
For example, if a young man got saved and he was
used to having sexual relationships with women before
he was saved, his flesh will want to keep right on doing
that. That doesn't necessarily mean he needs to have a
devil cast out of him. He just needs to learn to keep his
flesh under subjection to his spirit and walk in line with
God's Word because God does not condone sin.
Every new believer needs to get into the Word of
God for himself to renew his mind and learn how to
present his body to God as a living sacrifice. As a born-
1 W. E. Vine, Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words (Nashville,
Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1985), p. 384.