By Ken Fletcher
“Pride and selfishness. The primary nature of the fallen flesh. You’ve got it. I’ve got it. Unbelievers and believers alike. All have it! Always thinking about things from the individual’s own selfish interest. It’s fear based. It’s not logical. It thinks in paths of irrational twisted emotional ways about itself.
It’s always about me. Me. Me. What do I want? How does it affect me? It should always be about me! How I feel. How I look. What others think about me? Me thinks about what the other person is thinking about me all the time. Why am I not happy? I feel sad. I need this. I need that. It’s the way it is because me thinks it is. (Even if it’s not really the way things are.) But, me knows it is different. Because me feels like it is! Me lives in a small world. A limited world. A sort of prison of the mind. Me does not think spiritually. Me does not hear from Jesus. Me does not want to hear from Jesus. Me just wants what me wants. Me does not think about the other person’s interest in the matter.
Understanding that nasty fallen nature in us helps us not to allow it to control our lives. Or try to control the lives of others. The more spiritually mature a person is, the better they can control their fallen nature. The more they know about themselves as a spirit with Jesus, the more they can deal with their flesh successfully. In our spirit, we want to always do what the Lord wants. But, the fallen nature, not so. It is against Jesus. So, it is against us too! Our own flesh that we carry around all day is against Jesus and us. It is fallen. It is temporary in this state that it’s in. And, must be dealt with daily.
It CAN be trained to do what we want inside. It does not naturally want to. But, it has to conform to our will. Whether it likes it or not. Notice, I keep saying “it” when speaking about our flesh’s fallen nature. “It” is not us! We are the person inside who is connected to the Lord’s Spirit! We should call the shots not “it”. Our born again recreated spirit is right with God. Our flesh is not! And, it will be changed. But, that is then, and this is now. We sure aren’t there yet are we! So, the idea is to get the truth into us and make “it” do what we want it to. Otherwise, there will certainly be trouble ahead.
To be flesh controlled means we will be bringing problems and trouble to ourselves. There will be corruption happening in our lives. There is no other thing that can happen. You sow to the flesh, you reap corruption. That’s it. What else can happen? You sow to the spirit, though, and you reap life and peace. So, we must make it do right. Don’t let “it” have it’s way! Refuse it to rule us.
We are all growing inside in our understanding. So, the degree of our growth will determine how much “it” is able to be in control over our being. Pride and selfishness. When you step back and look at all the ugly stuff in there, you realize that you just do not want it to be in control. Really, in your heart, you want to walk in love. So, the desire is born into us. It is growing to the degree that we can actually dominate our outward fallen nature.
I believe that we can experience more and more spirit domination of our being as we know the Lord better. We begin to understand and take on His ways. Because, in reality, His ways ARE our ways. We are one through His Spirit. Above I wrote about some of what “it” is all about. Wonder why the world is so messed up? There it is. Then, you add the fact that the devil is also able to work behind the scenes through the fallen nature. And, you can get a little better picture of what is happening in reality.
To say it lightly, it’s all a big mess. And, getting messier as time goes along. Corruption can only last so long until it is done. Truth and light is forever. Let’s stay diligent against our fallen nature. To the believer, the devil really is no big deal at all. We have authority over all of them. But, the fallen nature we drag around all day and night while were here. So, we’ve got to keep it in check all the time. Wishing you the best as you are keeping “it” in control.” KF KenFletcher.org
