Spirit Man

Spirit Man
But each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. James 1:13-14
We have three primary enemies. The first and probably greatest enemy is our flesh. We spend a lifetime feeding and pampering our flesh. He grows strong! Because he is so strong he rules and dominates our lives. The second enemy is the world. The world influences us in ways we don’t even recognize. It controls our thought patterns in many different ways. The third enemy is the devil himself. He is always looking for a way to enter our lives. He can’t do it without our permission, so he looks for weaknesses and then tempts us to open those doors. We foolishly fall for it many times, often without even recognizing what we have done.
To grow spiritually, we must feed our spirit man and cause him to grow to the point that he stronger than our flesh man. This is a process that takes time. Nobody is born spiritually mature. Nobody becomes spiritually mature overnight. We must start somewhere and build our spirit man brick by brick or step by step. In Genesis Chapter 4 we read the story of Cain and Abel. Abel brings a sacrifice to God and God is pleased. Cain brings a sacrifice to God and God is not pleased. Cain becomes angry and his face is downcast and God approaches Cain and asks why are you downcast? If you do right you will be accepted. But if you don’t do right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it. Jesus said if you want to follow me, you must deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me.
In both cases, we must be willing to crucify our flesh man. We must die to our desires. We must master our sin nature and choose God and His ways. I heard a man say this week that God told him this. Would you rather have an easy road with less fruit or a harder road with more fruit? If we want to live the victorious life that Jesus died for us to have, then we must be willing to crucify our old man and live in the spirit. To live in the spirit we must make some hard choices. While these choices may hurt, the end result will be much more satisfying. Is our vision good enough to see the big picture? Or are we constantly staring just at what is right in front of us?
Consumed by the call,
Pastor Marty