19 Tuesday Sep 2023
I wonder if our challenge is we want to be alive in the flesh so badly, we are not coming fully alive in the spirit. We cannot be alive in both the flesh and the spirit. We are called to put to death the deeds of the flesh so we can be alive in the spirit, but we have been lied to and said we can live in the flesh and the spirit simultaneously and that is just not biblically accurate. No wonder so many people avoid church, Christianity and even God. They were told come as you are, so they did. Then they were told say a prayer so you can go to heaven, so they did. But no one told them you have to die to your flesh in order to be alive in the spirit. So, they said a prayer, but do not have an abundant life. Hmmmmmmmm
1 Peter 3:18 says, “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;”
Until we put to death the flesh, the self life we love so much, we will never be alive in the spirit. Being a Christian in the flesh is the most challenging life you will live. But we are not called to live in the flesh, but in the spirit. However, to do this, you must literally surrender all. You must die to your self, your flesh, and live for Jesus the Christ. There is no lukewarm, half-hearted, when I feel like it or am in the mood spirit life. When you have died to your self, to your flesh, you are alive in the spirit and you want you want to get up in the morning, for you are so alive.
1 Peter 1:13-16 says, “Prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, ‘YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.'”
Friends, He paid a big price for us to be free, this is not about going to heaven, but about living alive in the spirit on earth. We are ambassadors for Christ. We are His witnesses. We must die to our self, so we can live and show a dying world what life really looks like.