Things your flesh might say

Do you remember that TV game show "The $10,000.00 Pyramid"? I thought it was one of the most entertaining shows and have never been able to channel surf past it. Even today when they show the reruns from the episodes from the late '70's and '80's, I stop surfing and watch it to the end. If there are back-to-back episodes, I'll watch the next one too. One of the categories that cropped up frequently was "Things _____ would say." And the player giving the clues would start making statements in the first person of whatever filled the blank. For instance, if the answer was "Things a washing machine might say", the player giving the clues might say "Why do they have to do laundry everyday" "How many times this week did they wear that shirt?" "I hate the way jeans get tangled up around my agitator." "Oh no, those towels are too heavy on that side, they're gonna knock me out of balance when we start spinning." and so on. It was a really ingenious game and it gave me an idea about today's blog. Today I thought I'd let my flesh have it's say about this whole walking with Christ thing. After all, our flesh is probably the most put-out and inconvenienced participant. Paul instructs us to give our flesh the harshest of treatments and I thought it would be profitable to hear its side of the story. So here are some things I have heard my flesh say as I have tried to press in and become more like Christ.

1)Who asked for living water?-The flesh has no appreciation for things of the spirit. It only knows what it feels and when its thirsty, it wants ACTUAL water. It has no use for some metaphysical concoction or metaphor. When your flesh is thirsty, it wants a drink and it doesn't matter how you try to sell it, if it won't satisfy my physical thirst, my flesh is disappointed. When we tell our flesh that we have access to "Living Water" the only it hears is "There is no ACTUAL water. Try your best to deal with disappointment." To the flesh, Living Water is synonymous with No Water and it is not happy about it.

2) "I don't want to be led by the Spirit. That's takes too much concentration. Can't God just bless me?"-Never forget that the main goal of our flesh is getting back to the couch to make sure the TV and remote control still work. If it requires more effort than that, our flesh is not interested. Being led by the Spirit means being quiet and letting someone else speak; also not very interesting to our flesh. Being led by the Spirit sounds too much like looking the word up in the dictionary instead of someone just telling you what it means. Even though, we eventually mature to that point where hearing from the Holy Spirit seems almost effortless, the flesh is not interested in developing that skill or any other skill for that matter.

3) "I don't care about having the mind of Christ."-That sounds like a death sentence to the flesh. If the mind of Christ moves in, what happens to my mind? So Christ gets to tell me what to do now? Thanks but no thanks.

4) "I'll take the path of least resistance. Every time."-So I can get back to the couch.

5) "I don't want to be filled with Holy Spirit."-see number 3. If the Holy Spirit moves in, what happens to me? That could be the end of some of the fun we've been having.

6) "I don't really see the big deal about God's presence. In fact, if God does show up, that could ruin my plans for the rest of the day. Is there no other way to get His blessings? Can't He just, ya know, zap us with the money without keeping us in church all day?"-God's presence is oppressive to our flesh. Our flesh feels threatened by God's presence. This is how we can tell how carnal we're being. If someone talks about asking for God's presence and we get defensive about it, we probably need to put our flesh under.

In fact, if we hear any of these things from our inner man,we probably need to put our flesh under. Paul tells us to "beat" our body into submission. It doesn't sound like it's going to go quietly. It sounds like we're going to have a fight on our hands. This is something I have struggled with my entire life. I will go through seasons when my spiritual strength is great and my flesh obeys. But then there are seasons when my spirit is too weak to enforce its will on my flesh. I've noticed that it's never a case of my flesh growing stronger, flesh doesn't grow stronger;that's too much like work. It is always a case of my spirit getting weaker which gives my flesh the opening it needs to rebel.

So that's what spiritual growth looks like from the perspective of our flesh. It's no fun at all. I wouldn't count on our flesh ever getting excited about growing up in Christ and leading the way. I think it's going to be dragged kicking and screaming off the couch into the abundant life.

"I beat my body into submission." "I have the mind of Christ." "What I hear the Father say, I do." Answer: Things my spirit might say.