Friday, July 15, 2011

Flesh vs. Spirit

         Great friends. I love each of you so dearly. I want to share what I got to hear this Sunday morning at The Oaks Church. The eye opening that was done in a short hour by myself and three of my beautiful friends was unreal. Conviction, a feeling I have learned to adore was taking over the whole room. God bless conviction. We talked about flesh, yes flesh. Not the over tanned, scarred, and bruised flesh that covers your body, but the way you serve Jesus. Galations 5:19-21 sums up flesh as '...sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.'
        "You, as a sinful human, attempt to make other sinful humans look worse than you by the acts describes in Galations 5:19-21." This is what serving Jesus through our flesh looks like friends. And why do we do this? Who the freak knows. Before Jesus, we had to live in and through the flesh ALL of the time. But guys, HE DIED FOR US. That life of hurt and pain is no more. So why, as truth knowing and seeking humans, do we continue? 
        Where Galations 5 might deliver some hard news, listing fifteen plus things we do against the spirit, it also lists what we as Christians are promised. 'But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.' This is great news. We are not offered those things, but PROMISED those things. But if we are always trying to conquer flesh with flesh, who are we serving but ourselves? In John 15:5, Jesus says, "...apart from me, you can do nothing." I have 'heard' this verse a thousand times, but I don't think I actually heard it until Sunday. Literally nothing you do apart from Christ is worth anything. Not one word you say or one move you make is important. And this could be the saddest thing you have ever heard, but it isn't because we serve and follow an absolutely beautiful God. 
      

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