Flesh versus Spirit

                                     Flesh versus spirit

John 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 

What does it mean to be "born again" into the kingdom of God. As it says in Colossians, the kingdom of My Dear Son "Jesus." Colossians 1:13

John 6:63 The Spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 

Human effort means we cannot earn right relationship with God. Many believe they can have favor from God by the things they do (go to church, read the Bible, give money, etc. ) it is only what Jesus did and our trust and confidence in Him ( through obedience to His word) that makes us children of God. When we obey the Word of God, the Holy Spirit in us produces the good works. One may ask how can I stop doing the things I don’t want to do, the answer is obey God’s word -- which the flesh will object to. Submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee ( James 4:7)

Acts 5:32 We are witnesses of these things and so is the Holy Spirit, who is given by God to those who obey him.” 

Notice it says the Holy Spirit is given to those who obey Him- -notice it does not say the Holy Spirit is given to those who intellectually believe. When we choose to obey the word of God, the Holy Spirit activates grace which produces the power to overcome temptations. Grace is not a free ticket to get out of jail, pass go and collect $200, it is the power of God to bring forth the victory that we couldn’t do by ourselves!

The great religious deception is that I can go on sinning without any consequence, because after all Jesus paid for my sin. That’s a lie from hell! Yes as long as we have the flesh we will miss the mark occasionally but we don’t practice sin or condone it. Repentance means to turn from. Stop doing what you know is wrong, change of direction and do what you know is right to the glory of Jesus! If we realize (be honest - acknowledge  the fact that) we fail and turn back to the truth, God is faithful and just to forgive us! I John 1:9 We must guard our hearts and minds by God’s word!

Romans 8:1 So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. (Read on) verse 4 He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, (for who?--those) who no longer follow their sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit (what the Spirit of God wants). 

There is only one way this can be done in that is in complete obedience to God’s Word. We can’t do this if we don’t know God’s Word which translates we are walking in our fleshly desires (emotions, lusts). Yes there is sometimes discomfort obeying God’s Word rather than obeying our lust but that’s the meaning of born again!

Verse 5 Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. ⁶ So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death (hell). But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace (heaven). For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will. ⁸ That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God. 

(That’s as clear as it gets!) That is why it’s so important to search the truth with all your heart of which God says that’s the only way you will find the truth. Each one of us is responsible for what teaching we allow into our hearts and minds, we can’t blame the pastor or the church we belong to because that was done by our own free will. If the Holy Spirit is in us he will witness to us the truth but if we want our own way we will harden ourselves from hearing the truth of which we are still accountable for. The devil convinces us that God will understand after all life is difficult and that’s what I was taught raised from a child but that will not stand in the presence of God. To be in the presence of God and to be eternally rejected because we believe something somebody else told us rather than what the word of God told us is going to be a frightful experience! The most important and best quality a person can have is teachability if it is the word of God don’t compromise it but if it’s not run from it. Bottom line is this, we will have no excuses!!! (Read and meditate on all of Romans 8)

Let me offer some scenarios of how flesh wants to overrule truth (spirit)  

A   A person’s heart is being challenged by the Holy Spirit to the truth of Jesus and commitment to him but our flesh will rationalize I will do it later, there’s plenty of time/look at all the fun I will miss out on/look at all the rejection Connie Christian gets for being a Bible thumper, I can’t handle that/my spouse will walk away from me/I fear loneliness/    the solution is: living with Jesus the truth now and eternally forever is worth whatever the cost is! He is God, if we trust him he will take care of us and lead us into all truth! He will be a friend and father to us and the peace of God which passes all understanding will guard us and give us his peace! We just don’t realize the consequences of rejecting Jesus and living now and eternally apart from him! What many think our fun times here on this earth are strongholds set up to destroy us and put us in misery. (John 10:10) says the thief (devil) cometh to steal kill and destroy, (through lies, deception, violence, hatred, selfishness, greed, Jesus came to give a ( life) and he didn’t stop there but he said life (abundantly). If we do things his way we will reap abundant life now and forever. That takes effort, a choice of our free will to walk by the spirit of God (obedience to his word) not our understanding of him, and to resist the darkness of which tantalizes our flash, pleasing Jesus who is worthy whether we feel it or not! If we go by our feelings rather than faith in Jesus and his word we inevitably will fail! Many professing Christians miss the mark because we rely on how we feel rather than on what God said! Don’t let deception dictate your future, now or eternally!

Now let’s get into some practical application in some different areas: fame, fortune, power, and pleasure,

Fame-the stick a person who is discontent and are deceived into the theory that if they become somebody important they will be worth something rather than what Jesus and his word says about you. Young boys have these urges into athletics because they see all the superstars get all this attention and money which brings forth women and stardom. Nothing wrong with athletics but in our world today athletics sports is a god! It distracts us from the truth of Jesus and his word and commitment to him because we are selfish and only the word of God can break that deception! (Reality shows)

Fortune-we see all these people living luxurious life’s Hollywood personalities etc. sports figures, TV personalities. The media through the deception of darkness creates the illusion that money brings happiness and if he really knew the truth about these people’s lives it would be much less attractive but the deception of material possessions distract our minds and hearts so aggressively we become greedy and unwilling to share with others as we are led. We want bigger houses, bigger cars so that we can impress people and get them into the deception that I am somebody rather than getting my identity and contentment in my friendship and relationship with Jesus who teaches quite the opposite. Things are wrong in themselves but we may god’s out of them which distracts us from the truth and ultimately we enter idolatry. If Jesus is your God money won’t be! If money and materialism is your god Jesus can’t be! Jesus is Lord of all or Lord of nothing!!!

Power-the negative side of power likes to control for the sake of feeling valuable and secure. Relationships are destroyed because of these strongholds. Marriages, work, countries, parent-child,. If we don’t recognize the stronghold of power it can become extremely evil to the extent of people like Stalin, Adolf Hitler, etc. We can do this in friendships, marriages, which destroys, humility builds! If we get power why would we listen to anybody else? Pride comes before a fall! If we are committed and diligent in meditating on God’s word these strongholds will be exposed and will be convicted and desire to choose and please Jesus rather than please myself of which brings forth deliverance. It all comes back to my heart, who am I going to yield to Jesus? And his word? Or myself of which is idolatry and disqualifies any profession of Christianity even though many choose to live in their own deception, won’t change the eternal result!

Pleasure-oftentimes we associate pleasure with sexual activity. From the man’s perspective, he may get a lustful imaginative thought and because he is desiring to pleasure himself rather than his Lord Jesus that spirit will meet him around like lettuce to a rabbit. The difficult thing for a man is that he is led by his attraction through his eyes (Sampson) (David) and a man’s imagination will take him to extremely pleasurable fantasies and without the Holy Spirit working with our self-control through his grace we give birth to these fantasy lives in oftentimes brings forth addiction. When a man sees seduction and that’s exactly what it is, he must get that thought and fantasy under subjection to Jesus and his word being willing to die to that gratification if necessary to please his master. No it’s not easy but it will set you free from demonic forces controlling us. When a man is encountered with a seductive spirit the proper action is to ask himself is this real, does this girl really mean what she’s appears to mean? The answer from Jesus will always be no (unless it your spouse), she wants to reduce you to a loaf of bread. But that revelation will only come through a heart that seeking Jesus with all his heart, that’s what he said you’ll find me when you search for me with all your heart! I believe this temptation, seductive spirit against men hinder and paralyze spiritually many good godly men. They feel dirty, condemned, unforgiven and the frustration builds souls powerful that they don’t know how to overcome because they believe this is a normal desire of which it is but it must be contained in the context of our God, his spirit, his word. If sex, food, entertainment, becomes a god in our lives we will not and can’t be free to serve Jesus. Condemnation will haunt us, but we say there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, but remember it says for those who walk by the spirit not by the flesh, so if we’re walking according to our flesh, condemnation has a right to us. Walking by the spirit needs to be walking according to God’s word, the faith, love, power, commitment level of Jesus! I know it sounds like a tall order but that’s why we need the Holy Spirit in us!!!     food can operate in the same way, shopping sprees, excessive decorating, it all stems from discontentment and discontentment comes from our lack of relationship with Jesus and trust in him totally. We need to be encouraged daily to overcome these worldly lusts but if we let the television lie to us and we believe that more than we do the word of Jesus how can we expect any victory at all? The truth of God’s word through the person and name of Jesus is the only way we can get set free!!! It says work out your salvation with fear and trembling, that’s what Jesus meant when he said to live you must die to our carnal nature and its lusts. Yes, it does cost, yes from God’s perspective it is a free gift but working out our salvation is going to cost us our life (heart)! Deliverance is available and attainable through Jesus and his word but sometimes the cost is excruciating pain. Getting free from darkness (only done through the blood of Jesus applying his word and obeying it) takes a quality decision!

 example: I have a truck that’s driven by regular gasoline, I have a lifetime supply of that gasoline, I don’t even have to fill it, it fills up by itself. This truck can’t do what I want it do to meet my needs, continually fails. So I know that if I have a diesel truck of which takes diesel fuel I will be complete. Everything I need to do concerning a truck is fulfilled with the diesel. I can’t put regular gasoline in this truck that is run by diesel fuel because the engine would not function and be destroyed, even though I have a lifetime free supply of regular gasoline but not usable for my diesel truck to operate . The parallel is this: when I get born again and have a new nature I must feed this nature with the proper food of which is the word of God. How can our spirits be regenerated with our old mindset rather than the renewing of our mind with the word of God? So how can we be born of God and not being nutritionalised by God’s word??? If we are not renewing our minds with God’s word are we not trying to drive a diesel truck with regular gasoline of which can’t be done? So how do we justify it in the Spirit? How can I be of the spirit of God and walk by the dictates of my flesh, rather than God's word? Is that not deception? It takes a conscious act of your will to press into God’s word and choose to believe and obey him of which changes our mind and lives to the glory of Jesus. I think often times we are proclaiming Christianity without the renewing of our minds with God’s word. Because of not having an understanding of God’s word we avoid pressing in to get understanding and we walk by our carnal nature because it’s comfortable and familiar but it’s a deception of which leads to death. Apart from feeding on God’s word and applying it in our lives, there can be no change. So am I really a new creation in Christ Jesus or am I wanabe? As a Christian and a new creation in Christ Jesus Jesus we will ultimately stumble over our flesh because of the un-renewing of our mind or just plain selfishness but we will not walk our lives out by the dictates of our carnal nature! If I am a new creation in Christ Jesus, I will walk by the dictates of God’s word because I am born into a new kingdom of which has different standards from my old Kingdom (world)! Being taught the truths of God’s word is essential for living a life pleasing to our heavenly father! We become discouraged when we are unlearned in God’s word.God's word says a friend of the world is an enemy of God. When it doesn’t make us comfortable we want to escape to the old familiar comforts of which leaves out the word of God and the opportunity to grow in the truth of Jesus. It’s better to be corrected here even though it’s painful than to be deceived and wrong when the Bell rings! Can we say we are what we eat? (Spiritually speaking)