In My Flesh Dwells No Good Thing...

This has been on my heart for years and I just felt inspired to write it down here, as I ponder a recent situation/discussion on the subject.

We have a flesh. I think all of us are keenly aware of it, altho in some religious circles, this seems to be a subject somewhat avoided and ignored, as if it didn't exist at all when one chooses to identify with Jesus or the interpretation of Jesus that the group may have. Somehow it has become a mindset that it's 'embarrassing' to admit that we have a flesh, I think because we are afraid of being misunderstood or dealt with harshly because you know, after you 'accept Jesus', you are supposed to somehow magically never struggle with the flesh again, because if you do struggle with the flesh, or if  you have a 'feeling from the fleshly side of things', then surely that means you are not truly walking with God. (said sarcastically, shaking my head)

We have a flesh. "In me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing." Paul wrote these words to his fellow believers around 2,000 years ago and it is still very true today because there is 'no new thing under the sun'. Mankind is always the same. Ever since the fall, we all have inherited a sinful nature and desperately need to be restored to our Father God through His son, Jesus. Every day that I walk this earth, I am grateful to God that He redeemed my life from destruction and crowned me with lovingkindness and tender mercy. But I am keenly aware of the fact that I have a flesh that I can choose to serve at any time. It takes a moment-by-moment commitment to trust wholly in the capability of the Holy Spirit to guide me into all truth, a complete surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, in order for me to experience the fullness and the abundance of that life He came to give me.

We have a flesh. But please let's not celebrate it. It needs to be crucified and buried with Christ so that we can experience His resurrection power and newness of life. It is not something to celebrate that I am capable of acting in selfishness and godlessness.

That I can feel godless and selfish at times is definitely something true. However, what I like to tell young women that I counsel, and what I've learned in my own journey, is this: FEELINGS are not facts. FEELINGS allow you to decide whether or not to ponder that thought further, allowing it to pass through into an action, or to toss it out and replace it with something full of LIFE from Jesus.

I see people sometimes almost celebrating our flesh. I think this likely is a reactionary measure from being oppressed by a religious community in their youth but I would like to say that this is not really the response that God is looking for. He calls us to lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily besets us. He calls us to become NEW. Nowhere in this 'becoming new' do I see room to glorify the flesh. If I am called to glorify my Father who is in heaven, then I am called to bear my Cross, deny myself and put my fleshly 'feelings' where they belong.

So my encouragement in this blog post is two fold:
1. Don't celebrate the flesh.
2. Don't act like you have no fleshly feelings ever that you need to take to the Cross

There's a ditch on either side. May we follow our Lord Jesus on the narrow way that leads Home, turning neither to the left hand nor to the right.

I am deeply  humbled at the mercy and grace my Father has given me thru the gift of redemption. It is not of my 'works', lest I should boast in my accomplishements. Living a consistently free life is HIS doing. "Here's my heart, Lord. Take and seal it, seal if for Thy courts above."