March 15, 2017

Do you make decisions in life by what feels right and natural? Are your relationships based on natural compatibilities? Do you discount what you hear from teachers of the Word because those things feel wrong and discomforting? Then guess what? Your lifestyle and choices are all “flesh,” and not of God.
 
Walking in the flesh, for those who are double-minded and not fully surrendered to Jesus Christ, feels like it’s the right thing to do. And the whispers of the Spirit are a warfare with the flesh; irritating, disrupting, and making you feel unsettled with a lack of peace. So you ignore them and avoid any contexts where what you hear might interfere with your life choices. And your choices of church attendance and those with whom you fellowship are, at best, Laodicean in nature. Your family choices, your friendships, your material provisions and what you share of them, and your life goals; all of them reflect the compromising attitudes of your heart.
 
But God is determined, for all who truly belong to him, to bring His true children into full fellowship with Himself. That means He allows the consequences of a lifetime of choices to come upon His children and His childrens’ families, in order for them to learn to walk in obedience to Him. Those “children” who have a façade of Christianity, without a covenant relationship with Christ, are free to go on their merry ways, enjoying the pleasures of life, the accumulations of wealth, and the praise of men.
 
What happens, though, when one is fully surrendered to Christ and filled with the Spirit? A warfare to win the heart. Those things that felt natural and good and proper before now bring guilt and shame. When the Spirit wins, the desire to please God rules and peace is the result.
 
One other serious consideration: The spirits sent by the evil one to draw believers away from God all feel normal and natural, reinforcing the flesh. We think the demonic always presents itself the way we see them in horror movies. Not so. The most deceptive of the demonic are deceptive because they counterfeit feelings which feel good to the flesh. They seek to fill the desires of our flesh and minds with feel-good substitutes for the real thing.
 
So, for all who seek to walk in the ways of the world, be assured. The consequences of those ways bring eventual severe disappointment and death. Just because things seem to be going OK now, be assured, your world and all that’s in it are under the judgment of God. Only One brings true life. And that One demands repentance, a turning around, and an embracing of the Lordship of Christ. That’s all God wants. It’s all God demands. And it’s all God will accept.
 
Remember: When  flesh rules one’s life, most life decisions feel morally acceptable. When the Spirit rules one’s life, decisions that previously felt OK now feel morally unacceptable. And that which pleases God feels right and proper.
 
 
_________________
 
Raymond E. Ashmore
Imparting Life Ministries
impartinglife@gmail.com

First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org

3/17