Our Flesh ... Aaaggghhhh!!!

 
Does your flesh ever give you trouble?  Mine does.  The flesh doesn't like the word ... wait, or no, not now.  It wants instant gratification.  Why can't the flesh wait?  It's like, no ... I want it now!  But I'm learning slowly.

Have you ever seen these spoiled little brats out in public, screaming uncontrollably at their mother, throwing a temper tantrum because they can't get their way?  Makes you just want to go over and slap both the kid and the mom ... the kid for acting that way, and the mom for letting him act that way. 

Do you suppose God looks at us the same way we look at these unruly brats and want to slap us once in a while?  Couldn't blame Him if He did.

It's a good thing I'm not God.  This world would be a different place.  There would be a whole lot fewer people you would have to mess with.

Most of us can identify with the Apostle Paul in at least this one way ... desiring to live a life that is pleasing to God.  Isn't that what most believers want to do?  Yet we fail, don't we.  Not in all things though.  But it's a slow growing process. 

As the old seventeenth century French monk, Nicholas Herman once said ... "One does not become holy all at once."

Back to Paul ... he was the man who was caught up to heaven (2nd Corinthians 12:4) and was told things not lawful to speak about.  He was also the man who wrote half of the New Testament.  Even so ... this man Paul states that he is just like we are ... a human that had to battle his flesh.  Aaaggghhhh! 

That means even though his heart and will had been changed by the Holy Spirit, his flesh still wanted what his old nature wanted.  That means, yes ... he still sinned.  He speaks about this in Romans 7:15-21. 

If you will allow me ... I want to replace Paul's words with my words, my own interpretation of them as I try to grasp and get a hold on what he is saying.  This is what I understand this portion of scripture is saying.

"The bad or wrong things that I do, I don't want to do and continually try to stop them; and the good things I want to do, I don't always do; but those things I hate, that's what I end up doing. 
But it's really not me who does these things, but rather it's the sin nature that dwells in my flesh.
I know that there is nothing good in my natural flesh … but my spirit, heart and will to do good is present inside of me … but I can't find how to make my flesh perform the good that my spirit has willed me to do.
The good that I want to do, I don't do; but the evil I don't want to do, that's what I often do.
Now if I do the evil that I don't want to do; it's not really me still doing it; it's the sin nature left within me.
What I have found then is a natural law … when I want to do good, the sin nature is always present in my flesh."

When Paul said … "it is no more I that do it" … he is explaining that since he did not approve of what his flesh did, but rather hated what he did, and "willed" the contrary, it was no longer he that performed the evil deed.

He explains … it was the "sin that dwelleth in me" … the old natural man, the carnal man; it was the evil sin nature that was still present in him rising up.  It was the law of sin which not only still existed in him, but dwelt in him, was at home in his flesh, and worked evil in him at times, as it does in all of us and will as long as we are in the body of flesh.  

That's why he said … "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing."  The man of flesh never gets saved, nor can he.  It is your "will" ... your spiritual heart that the Holy Spirit changes ... not your flesh.  

I'm sure you have heard it said that the real you ... is the eternal spirit ... that lives inside of your body.  It's been called your soul, your heart, your spirit man, etc.  That's the part that gains salvation and is changed, the born again spirit within.

Well, I'm here to tell you, that ... the flesh ... is just as much the real you, as is that spirit man within.  They are connected.  When God breathed life into Adam's flesh, he became a living soul.  It took both.  Not just flesh.  Not just spirit. 

We are not "spooks" trapped inside of a body.  God already had spirit beings in heaven.  He wanted someone with a warm body of flesh.  And a heart of flesh ... and all the problems that comes with both being together ... because He can fix all the problems.  I don't understand everything I know.  I'm not here to explain how and why God did what He did.  I except it for what it is.

So, where does that leave us?  Well, with our changed heart and soul, and our fallen, carnal natural flesh ... all in the same package ... we do battle once and a while don't we.  But even so ...

God loves us ... as we are.