Day 332 - What Is The Flesh?

Thoughts on Michael Wells’ teachings in My Weakness for His Strength (Vol. 1) - # 327

         

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Well, in this day’s writing Michael exercises his discipleship muscles and gives some of his most specific observations about this dastard thing we know as “the flesh.” I love it!

We can make a copy of this writing and get busy helping ourselves and others to see the basis for a lot of our thinking and actions. Amen.

DAY 332

             

What Is The Flesh?

Job 34:15, All flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust.

John 1:13, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

No one can be born again by the will of the flesh, insidious in its ability to take the eyes off of Jesus. It is impossible, for in the flesh are the senses of man that constantly need feeding. One may think of them as instinct gone amok. The flesh constantly screeches for attention and has a thousand methods at its disposal to get it. Senses in the body and soul (mind, will, and emotions) are given attention whether with pain or reward, feeding or starving, or conscious avoidance or obsession. Any consideration given them keeps them alive and in charge. The greater truth is that the senses want to be activated; the lesser truth is how they are stimulated, which is by eating from the tree of good and evil. The desire for food (wish fulfillment or fantasy) will keep senses alive just as much as condemnation from eating too much. Look at the anorexic or observe the obese, and both scream “flesh in control.” Either an overwhelming desire for sex or the self-condemnation from looking at porno will loudly proclaim that the flesh has regained control. The senses in the soul lead to pride, whether in thinking of oneself as intelligent or stupid; both are still flesh, just as is thinking of what one can do or not do or of being caring or not caring. Again, flesh is simply the senses of body or soul being in control. People in the East have a tendency toward denying the flesh in an attempt to appease it, while those in the West feed it in an attempt to appease it. Of course, the Westerners do not come out ahead, in that nothing is enough to satisfy it; like a tick, flesh will feed until it explodes and destroys itself. Nor do those in the East really have an advantage, since there is ultimately no way to withhold from the flesh.

Nevertheless, the flesh is flesh and is hostile to God, which explains why flesh desires to be in control so that man is flesh-centered. If man becomes Christ-centered, the senses of flesh would not be fed but would be subdued before Christ. The flesh can never be more than a slave, and a rebellious one at that, for by the works of the flesh will no flesh be justified. Believers and non-believers alike have flesh. The saddest thing is to witness someone who has abandoned his will to flesh. I meet many Christians that struggle with the sin of homosexuality but are not homosexual, and someone meeting them would never guess their particular deed of the flesh. However, meet someone who has by choice yielded to that area of the flesh, and it is evident in his or her body. Just a few minutes with that person reveals the object of their fleshly leanings. 

Now, why would God put us in flesh? I am not talking about a physical body but the accompanying anti-God desires of the senses that reside in the physical body and in the soul. Well, it has been said that the greatness of a man is not determined by what he does but rather by what he refuses to do. The man who feeds his flesh through adventure and the procession of praise for victory or the mockery for defeat is not as great a man as he who says, “Not my will but Thy will be done.” Having flesh and its senses allows man the unique opportunity of choice, of living on the earth but not being of the earth, of living to God and not to senses, and the discovery of something higher in this life, spiritual fulfillment. Flesh, or rather the call of the senses to stay alive, is a constant reminder that we must move our eyes to Jesus. It is another stronghold allowing us to stay focused. If God is for us, then who can be against us? Again, the flesh is never a friend; we may buffet it and make it a slave, but it will never be a friend. The flesh is a strange thing in that it cannot live on its own but must thrive on something that is living. It adapts to resemble the thing on which it lives, but it is not really a living thing. When man dies, his fleshly condition dies.

Yellow – VIP, Very Important Point      Green – IT, Incredible Truth        

Red – GP, Greatest Promises

Turquoise – UR, Unfathomable Riches           Pink – PV, Priceless Victory

Boy howdy, what a piece of information that can be of such great benefit to so many.

I think of two questions that constantly grieve me:

1.     how is it that Believers have Truth that our New Birth is nothing of the old (this and other great verses telling us just that), yet so many will judge the actions of flesh in observing whether they think someone has been Born Again?

2.    Why do so many Believers spend so much time focused on “the flesh” instead of moving the eyes to Jesus and staying focused on Him?

What is up with “the church” these days?

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