I cannot serve God as I would while I am in the flesh, try as I might, there is a continual hindrance to my service to Him. It comes not so much from the world and its influences, but from the inner man, the old nature that I, along with everyone else was born with. “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24)
All that desire Paul understand perfectly, “For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.” (Romans 7:19) The good is not possible in this life, our efforts turn to vainglory, our works become the deeds of the flesh, our desire to serve is not hindered by Satan, only we can control them. Our adversary indeed does pose a serious threat to us, not in life and limb unless the Lord allows it, but in the ability He has to control influences upon us, we though have the ability to say yea or nay to those influences, we are the only responsible party when it comes to controlling our flesh.
“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.” (Romans 7:25) This verse has consumed me of late, for if our flesh is not our mind, what is it? How can that which is only a member, though whole in nature, control the mind, how can bone, sinew, muscle and all that is not of the inner thoughts of us have power over not the brain, but our very natures?
Original sin permeates every fiber of our being, we are in a way three distinct individuals in this life, the flesh, our minds and the Holy Spirit. One may as well attempt to physically see two of them as the one we can, the flesh, but we cannot, you cannot see the Spirit of Christ which dwells within us, those that have been born-again, nor can you hold a mirror up to see your mind, but the flesh is visible, without it, at least in this life, we cannot exist.
I ask this question of you, and only for your contemplation, if indeed those who are attempting to do so can one day place the consciousness of a man, all that resides within his mind, into a computer, into the cloud as it is called today, would that person’s sin nature go along with them? Is there sin, or at least a sin nature, without the flesh? “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” (Heb. 4:15)
I will not delve deeply here into this topic, but consider this as well, God cannot be tempted, unless He is in the flesh. Volumes could be written about those ten words, and none would come close to ever understanding them. Sin no longer has dominion over those who live for Jesus Christ, with our mind we serve Christ, yet that which has no mind, no capability for cognizant, deductive reasoning skills, that is not in any terminology that we can comprehend, capable of sentient abilities rules over us in the area of sin, the flesh, when we reach heaven, before we are let in, before that narrow gate is opened for us, we will be glorified, the old nature will be put to death, removed forever, yet we will be, if caught up in the rapture, or in that time if we die first, reunited with these bodies, changed in a way that we cannot yet perceive, for 1 Corinthians 15:50 stands as truth. “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.”
We will be different even from Adam, in nature of the flesh, that which we fight daily against will be removed, we will finally be able to serve as we desire to here, without interference from the old nature. There is something we cannot explain properly living inside of our flesh, sin, the original sin that all are born with is the best any of us can explain it. It battles against our mind, yet has no mind, as we relate those words to our ability to think, it is unseen, yet we can see it in the mirror. The lost, the wicked cannot differentiate between these two, the flesh and the mind, they do not recognize the battle we fight continuously. I pray that you will attempt to.
