I am a fool, and I have always been a fool. Now I know that the Scriptures are quite clear, we are not to call a brother or sister in Christ a fool, but since I am speaking about myself, and I know myself fairly well, I am correct when I say I am a fool and have for the majority of my life acted foolishly.
I lived most of my life apart from the Lord, even much of it since He called me to Himself, I have followed the flesh more than Christ, and I have served myself more than the will of God. But there is in one respect where I have not behaved foolishly, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.” (Psalm 14:1)
I have always known that God exists, though never in a way until He began to reveal Himself to me that I could express to others, or even to myself. My memory is extremely poor, but I cannot recall ever asking God to damn something, and I cannot recall using the name of the Lord Jesus Christ as a swear word, but with the life I lived for so many years, it would not surprise me if I did so.
A fool as described in the Scriptures is one who orders their life as if there is no God, and in that respect, I dare say that at least in one or more areas of all of the lives of those who have been crucified with Christ we could all call ourselves fools.
What we want is the ability to keep every thought captive for Christ, we want everything that we do to glorify God, every action to be preceded by the knowledge of the Holy Spirit leading us, but that does not happen, does it? Leave us alone for ten minutes and we will be as sheep that go astray. The world calls, our flesh desires, our wants turn to needs, and we seek self above the Most High God. It is inevitable, and the truth of it is found in Romans 7:25, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”
We do not want to be this way, we want to be pleasing to the Lord, we want to be as profitable as anyone can be to His Kingdom, but the flesh does not want that, because if there is one thing the flesh knows without a doubt, it knows it is going to die and it is going to die forever. “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.” (1 Cor. 15:50)
I do not believe that Satan is our worst enemy, and not to denigrate him in any way, but I believe we are, or better yet our old nature is.
Recall here that the Lord called Job a righteous man, yet it was in his supposed assurance of his own righteousness that fault was found in him. The mind wants to stand beside Christ in the garden as the mob approaches, the flesh runs away in fear. The mind wants to turn away at the sight of Bathsheba bathing, the flesh invites her into the bedchamber, and then deceives us, for are we not children of the Most High? Pain would have us to run to the physician, the mind falls on its face and begs for relief from the great Physician.
The unregenerate man does not understand one single word written here, they are foolishness to him, while we see the fool inside ourselves.
There is a freedom awaiting all of us who serve the Lord Jesus Christ, not just that of no more sorrow, no more tears, not even of no more pain, but a freedom from the foolishness within ourselves that plagues us nearly every day. A freedom to serve without the hindrance of that old man inside of us.
Until that time we remain in the battle, we fight against what we once were, continuing to count the past achievements as dung, praying that the Lord would each day reveal just a little more of Himself to us, and remove just a little more of the flesh from us, until that day when it is gone forever.
