Avoiding The Works of the Flesh
Galatians 5:19-21 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Okay, so Jesus came to set the captives free. That’s what He said of Himself:
Luke 4:18-19: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.
That sounds a lot like freedom to me. That’s the promise that Jesus holds out to you and me. That’s great, but a lot of people who believe in Him, DON’T experience that kind of freedom. So either … He was lying when He said that – I give that option a fairly low probability – or, those people are doing something wrong. A much higher probability you’d have to say.
There’s a battle going on inside each one of us – between living for Jesus and living for ourselves. You and I are essentially pretty selfish individuals and if you’re anything like me, with a propensity to go wandering off and living our lives for ourselves, rather than for Jesus.
It’s almost as though, we’ve been given freedom, but we decide to head straight back into prison again. So compelling is this desire of ours to botch up our lives, that we need help. Fortunately, that’s no surprise to God and it’s something that He’s already given us, in the form of … the Holy Spirit.
Galatians 5:16-17: Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want.
There’s the battle – between what the Holy Spirit would do in our lives, and what we would do of our own accord. And here’s what I’ve discovered. The things that I want to do, end up robbing me of the freedom that Jesus wants to give me – the freedom, in fact that He’s already given me. And let’s face it, those things, by and large are not good things.
Galatians 5:19-21: Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Not a very salubrious list is it? I mean really, come on, God only tells us not to do the things that are going to hurt us. The things that are going to rob us of the freedom that Christ came to bring us.
Listen to the Holy Spirit and He’ll keep you away from those things. He just will.
And that’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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