Greetings!
Our flesh likes to be in control!
Of everything. In control of ourselves, in control of the people around us, in control of our circumstances, in control of other people’s circumstances. Nothing will throw our flesh into a bigger revolt than when we realize we have to hand over control. It’s a death blow to our pride.
No way around it.
Out of control flesh is the secret to surrendering to the power of the Spirit. Remember, there will be no shared governing. Flesh or Spirit, but not both. When you are experiencing frustration, anger, or bitterness (Christian life does have frustrations) because you can’t get the people around you to act like you need them to act, you can call that flesh. When you are in a panic, or filled with resentment because you can’t manipulate circumstances into order, you can call that flesh.
The impulse of our flesh is to
try harder, manage more, enforce our will more stringently, maneuver and massage and finesse until we get everyone and everything straightened out and marching to our beat. Some people’s flesh comes on strong in a frontal assault. They use intimidation and demanding to try to line things up. Others do the manipulating from a stealth position, relying on their wiles and ability to play on either fears or emotions to get things lined up. It doesn’t matter.
Both patterns are equally deft at bringing all the death-bearing aspects of flesh into the situation. Whether dressed up to be sweet and winsome, or revealed as overbearing and forceful, flesh is flesh is flesh. The reason that our flesh rises up and gives its all to make things fit its goals is because flesh promises that if everything and everyone would just do and be what we want them to do and be, then the happiness and peace that eludes us would be ours. Flimflam flesh. Big claims, no results. It gets you nowhere.
Flailing Flesh
Are you getting a clear understanding of flesh?
Have you started recognizing flesh in your life? Let’s spend one more day clarifying what we mean by flesh in the way we are using it in this journey. Flesh means operating in the power of our own sin-soiled human nature.
I hear people refer to “the sins of the flesh,” as if that is a category of sin separate from some other kind of sin. I think they usually mean sins that have to do with the body, like sexual immorality or substance abuse. The phrase seems to mean outward behaviors, or sins performed by the body.
Let me take issue with that use of the phrase.
The flesh is more than the body. All sins are sins of the “flesh.” Sin is a fruit that has a root called unrighteousness that grows in ground called flesh. We’ll go into more detail about that later, but sin grows out of flesh. All sin has flesh as its
starting point.
Sin diminishes you.
That’s what puts it in the category of sin. It is harmful to you. It gunks up the inner workings of your life and slows your progress. It creates a spiritual sludge that keeps your life from the fullness for which you were created. God hates sin because of what it does to you.
Flesh generates sin. Flesh nourishes the root that grows a fruit called sin. All sin is born out of flesh. Flesh can only reproduce flesh.
“Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit” (John 3:6).
“The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life” (John 6:63).
Jennifer Kennedy Dean
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Jennifer Kennedy Dean 2019
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