Exchanging Life Publications | January 2, 2019
Exposed Flesh
That flesh in us nourishes the root of unrighteousness that grows the
sin-fruit. God is after the root. When the root is gone, the fruit will cease to exist.

Jennifer
Greetings!

Do you have exposed flesh?

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self- indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean’” (Matt. 23:25-26). Jesus said that when the inside is clean the outside will be clean. We spend our energy trying to get rid of sins, when God wants to uproot sin’s source.

How does He do it? One of His methods may surprise you. God uses temptation to purify us. He is not doing the tempting, but He is using the temptation to flush out flesh.

“God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear” (1 Cor. 10:13). Who is in charge of what temptation reaches you? Look carefully at what the Scripture says about temptation: God will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. Do you see that God is in charge of what temptation reaches you? If God is in charge of what temptation reaches you, can temptation have any purpose but good? “All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant” (Ps. 25:10). “You are good, and what you do is good” (Ps. 119:68).

God allows temptation in order to isolate, identify, and uproot unrighteous- ness and expose flesh.

Let me backtrack and clarify something. God is not tempting you. He is not the source of temptation. “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is
tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone” (James 1:13). He, however, decides what temptation will be allowed to
reach you.

Do you believe there is anything that Satan devises that can outwit God?  Do you believe that Satan has the freedom to act without God’s permission? (See Luke 22:31; Job 1:12) Do you believe there are temptations Satan would like to bring your way for which God will not give him permission? Do you believe that God has a plan for your life? That He watches over you without intermission? Does God know a temptation is headed your way before it reaches you? What good, productive purpose might God have in mind by allowing temptation?

Living in an altar’d state means surrendering to the death from which life comes. The cross is the only place where flesh can go to die.

Jennifer Kennedy Dean

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Content from, p ersonal writings, Jennifer Kennedy Dean 2018 ©
ALTAR'D | JENNIFER KENNEDY DEAN

Through careful exposition and biblical teaching, celebrated author and prayer expert Jennifer Kennedy Dean guides readers on a 40-day exploration of the Scriptures and what it means to truly live a life dead to flesh and alive to the spirit. Let the altar do its work in you, transforming fear to faith, worry to worship. Each time that old pattern starts asserting itself in your thoughts, overlay it with the new reality: I’m altar’d. .  Click Here