Jer. 17:5 π Mt. 13:33 π Lk. 19:41-44 π Rom. 6:11 π Rom. 8:7 π Rom. 8:8 π Rom. 8:13 π 2 Cor. 1:12 π 2 Cor. 7:1 π Gal. 5:9 π Gal. 5:17 π Gal. 5:24 π Gal. 6:8
“For the flesh lusts against the Spirit...” ( Gal. 5:17; top )
The flesh doesn’t care about other people’s needs. It is centered on itself; nor does it care to have spiritual anointings upstage its own carnal program. It resists the flows of God’s Spirit. “So then they who are in the flesh cannot please God.” ( Rom. 8:8; top ) Even though they are Christians.
Many spiritual get-togethers (meetings) never accomplish what the Spirit wants accomplished because the human (fleshly) spirit rules out God’s spiritual purposes. A divided heart (spirit) can quite easily be induced to go the way of the flesh. The flesh must die before one can walk totally in the spirit.
Your mind will lie to you. There is nothing spiritual about the human mind: “The carnal (fleshly) mind is enmity against God...” ( Rom. 8:7 ) The human mind is especially deceitful when it is programming its self-justification and preservation of its lust to rule. We do not find the victory of the cross by our minds, but by bearing our own cross, “...not with fleshly wisdom.” ( 2 Cor. 1:12; top )
Many so-called Holy Spirit meetings are neither holy nor spiritual. The participants are obviously being ruled by the flesh. The resultant building programs, concerts, and even so-called revivals (human) are used to set aside God’s real purposes for a congregation or group. This keeps a whole group of people from hearing about dying to self and surrender to God’s holy will.
We can propose that what is necessary for this apostate congregation is a special move of God’s Spirit to deliver the whole group. God can sovereignly do that, but the same rebellion (self-will) would be still resident in the inner man. A deep work of repentance is needed; forgiveness without purging still leaves us defiled.
The flesh is diabolical; it must be crucified. ( Gal. 5:24; top )
Every outpouring of God’s Spirit has eventually died out, because the flesh has polluted God’s order for that move of God’s Spirit. Today we have great numbers of churches, once alive to God’s Spirit, that have yielded to fleshly programs until the whole Church (loaf) is leavened. ( Mt. 13:33; top )
When the flesh starts to rule, it gleefully ministers only what it has: death; yet the body of believers aren’t aware that they are being ruled by the flesh. They didn’t know the time of their visitation. ( Lk. 19:41-44 , Gal. 5:9 , Gal. 6:8 , Rom. 8:13; top )
“Thus says the Lord, ‘Cursed is the man who trusts in man and who makes flesh his strength, and whose heart departs from the Lord.’” ( Jer. 17:5; top )
In contemporary Christianity, all manner of fleshly groups and promotions exist under the label of “God’s program and order.” Yet, because the anointing of the Lord’s Spirit is not present, there is nothing to convict them, so God can get them to repent and be delivered from their darkness. Our cleansing from darkness is experiential. We cannot just reckon ourselves dead unto sin ( Rom. 6:11; top ); there must be a deep purging and deliverance from our darkness and sin.
The Spirit of God was meant to completely rule our lives, yet we cannot live after the Spirit unless we surrender through the cleansing of the blood (experientially).
The only great thing about man is his great sin of stubbornness.
It will take in this last hour a totally dedicated, surrendered and purged end-time Christian to stand up like Jeremiah and come against the man-made anointings so that the restoration of God’s perfect will and Spirit will overcome and rule: anything less will eventually bring total darkness, even to born-again leaders.
“...Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh...” ( 2 Cor. 7:1; top )
The (carnal) flesh rules the Church world today, in the hour of the Church’s greatest need. Lord have mercy!
The Lord wants us to have the brokenness in spirit of David. David learned he couldn’t trust his own heart, but most Christians have chosen the same spirit that was behind Saul - one of stubbornness and unyielding to God’s will. This lust to rule will eventually accelerate in these end times, until even many Christian leaders will accept the earthly kingdom of the anti-Christ.
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