Romans 8:5 Part 4. Victory Over the Flesh is About Settiing Our Mind on the God's Truth

Romans 8:5

 For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh,

This verse identifies any person who thinks this way:  whether saved or lost.

set their mind - meaning that this is a choice they live by.  All unregenerate souls have a chosen mindset that views sin and self as preference and objective.  To them, God is viewed in terms of their belief system which only puts Him outside their self-serving purposes.  God is a belief system not a relationship.

• it is the way they constantly think:  self first, God considered, filtered, and rejected.
• Jesus makes this clear when speaking to Peter, "Matthew 16:23 But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's."
• Philippians 2:2 make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.
• Philippians 3:19 whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.
• Colossians 3:2-note Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth
• Philippians 2:5- Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,

KJV Bible Commentary writes that phroneo "means to have something as the habit of your thought; something in which you place a total interest. Those who place their total interest in the things of the flesh cannot have their interest in the things of God. (KJV Bible Commentary)

• You order your life by what you like.  Unregenerated souls like the things of this world which interests them.  The regenerated man, however, has tasted things from above and is like an opened conduit, wanting as much as he can in knowing and experiencing God.
• We, the regenerated ones, desire to set our minds upon our Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; desiring more of them, the life they offer, the likeness they have designed for us.
• The unregenerated ones are, what Paul calls, "the natural man."  The things of God appear to be foolish to him:  Christians, church, attempting to live a Christian life which sometimes displays hypocrisy, high moral standards, filtered activities, etc.  

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1 Corinthians 2:13-15 GOD’S WORD Translation (GW)

13 We don’t speak about these things using teachings that are based on intellectual arguments like people do. Instead, we use the Spirit’s teachings. We explain spiritual things to those who have the Spirit.[a]
14 A person who isn’t spiritual doesn’t accept the teachings of God’s Spirit. He thinks they’re nonsense. He can’t understand them because a person must be spiritual to evaluate them. 15 Spiritual people evaluate everything but are subject to no one’s evaluation. 

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TO THE CHRISTIAN WHO ACTS IN THE FLESH

• All Christians act fleshly.  We must never insulate ourselves with the thought that we do not act fleshly at times.  The best of Christians get into the flesh just as the weakest.  The difference may be that the best of Christians recognize and use the power of Christ to deny the works of the flesh.  But ALL of us are still learning, still vulnerable, and still weak at moments to give way to the flesh.  This is not to excuse, but to admit who we are.  This earthly "thorn in the flesh" is something we must learn to deal with by way of the Scriptures and cooperation with the Spirit of God.  Every Christian acts fleshly at some point.  Some live it more consistently than they should.  And we all should be careful how we judge other believers who act that way.  It is one thing to condemn actions as fleshly.  It is another to harshly criticize another brother/sister who acts that way.
• We still live in a body of sin.  It carries a poison for us to drink.  This body of sin has lost the power to dominate us.  Christ remedied that on the cross.  But it is left within us to deal with, by the wisdom and power of God.  We will always do what we don't want to do and not do what we know we should do [Romans 7:17]
• But it is by choice.  the Bible tells us to buffet our body (1 Cor. 9:27).  We are left with a dethroned kingdom of Flesh-Rule.  But it is still a rogue enemy re-banding forces to retake the throne of our life.  It is our choice to take up the weapons and tools of the Spirit to combat the enemies.  
• The Christian life is not easy life of living in the "modern-grace-concept" of just waiting on God to help or forgive us without the extraordinary use of our will to comply with the Spirit.
• Responsibility.  We must act.  We must labor the field of our heart.  We must not attempt to deal with the flesh ourselves.  We will fail.  But when we yield to the Lord we can win.  But if we lose, there is mercy and wisdom.  Wisdom, being that if we give in to the flesh, it will sow consequences of conflict within and without the soul.  Flesh pays destruction for choosing it.  There is no easy benefit for choosing flesh.  But we can receive mercy.  Though we receive forgiveness it takes a good bit of time to rebound spiritually to the faith level we had, the feelings, the confidence we had, etc--all take time to recover what sin has done.
• Galatians 5:24 tells us to allow the Spirit to carry out its death sentence, legally pronounced by Christ's finished work on the cross.  Sin was dealt with.  Flesh was dethroned.  Temptation was arrested.  But the enforcement and "hand-cuffed" and "de-powered" operation takes place when we yield to the Spirit.
• It is not to be an excuse to live in it.  It must be hated, seen as an enemy of growth, and denied by the will
• It's ways must be understood.  Many Christians do not even know that how they think and act is "in the flesh."  But others see it.  And it most definitely negatively affects every relationship and work for Christ.
• All he thinks and talks about are the matters of this world.  He feels uncomfortable talking about matters of God.   To the Christian, flesh is that bent in us to return to sin and self.  Practicing ordering our walk by the Spirit is the way we must walk.
• he cannot help but giving away, surrendering of our flesh to the demands of Sin
• The aim of the flesh is to break the will from obeying Christ

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HOW DO CHRISTIANS RECOGNIZE WHAT IS THE FLESH?

1.  By an abandonment to the Lordship of Jesus Christ

• disavowal, stepping down
• abandon, renunciation, resignation, surrender, retirement 
• only a pure-hearted disciple of Christ will be able to recognize "flesh."  Carnal living Christians, willfully holding to self-ideas contrary to God, are covered with a veil of blinding vision of truth with an image of glorified opinion.

2.  The Illumination of Scripture.  Our eyes are opened to truths of Scripture

3.  The Inspiration From the Holy Spirit.  We are. inspired of its Truth and how to apply it.

• The Spirit's work to bring God's thought on a matter to the spirit [spiritual mind and heart of the believer, his conscience, and the Spirit's leading]
• As a disciple of Christ we walk with Christ, our spirit is made aware which of his thoughts and feelings are wrong or right.  Scripture comes to mind revealing what is right and what is flesh.
• It is now up to the disciple to decide which he will follow. 
• Yes, it is difficult to say no to the feelings of flesh.  But taking up the cross is the only way to kill the temptation.  The way of the cross is painful.  How?  Because flesh cries out for satisfaction.  It yells loudly for its own way.  But the spirit within us is not loud.  It need not be.  It is quite and gentle, but strong and effective.  If we listen to the spirit, suffer the denial of the flesh, the work of the cross will kill the demands of the flesh.  Then the Spirit will win and the soul will flourish with fruit of the Spirit and rich effects to the personality.
• This is the path to growth, display of maturity, added strength to correct decision making, added wisdom in decision making.

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HOW DO CHRISTIANS STOP THE EXPRESSION OF A FLESHLY THOUGHT?

 but those who are according to the Spirit, [follow] the things of the Spirit.

• We, the new creature, order our walk in harmony with the Spirit.  We desire that.  We want to please God.   We want and make every attempt to live a good Christian life.  therefore, we think on spiritual matters, for what pleases Christ.
• Though we desire to do this, it is a difficult long-term practice to set our minds on the things of the Spirit of God.  But practice this and your life will become extraordinarily fruitful with God's thoughts enriching your soul, behavior, and performance in life.
• It is true, from personal experience,  any time I consciously and quietly look to the Spirit of God for help, the flesh always becomes subdued.

Ray Stedman writes that "FLESH is openly arrogant, overbearing, boastful, lustful, cynical, proud. We have it described in Ephesians 5. But when it is driven by the Spirit into a corner it can assume a garb of righteousness and become pious, religious, scrupulous about morals, zealous in church work, indignant over wrongs, provokingly evangelical!...The righteousness of the FLESH is always counterfeit righteousness. It is centered in self, and therefore it is always self-righteousness....The FLESH can memorize Scripture. The FLESH can teach Sunday school. The FLESH can distribute tracts, give large gifts of money, give a stirring testimony, teach a Bible class, sing solos, or preach a sermon. It can even apologize (after a fashion), and repent (to some extent), or suffer (with a martyred air), but there is one thing that FLESH will never do. It will do anything to survive, but one thing: It will never give in.  It will never surrender, it will never change, it will never give up, never! It is a slippery, elusive thing; and, when we back it into a corner, it simply takes on a different disguise and appears in a different form, but it is the same old, deadly, evil FLESH. When driven into a corner it would rather wreck your life than give in. Have you found this to be true?" (The Price of Survival; see also The Death of the Flesh). https://www.preceptaustin.org/romans_85

• We must always remember that the flesh is always present in us looking for opportunity to express itself through us.  Someone said flesh is like a volcano ready to erupt and destroy the surroundings nearby.
• Be watchful, you are capable of about anything.  Take heed to watch yourself, lest you fall.

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THE DIVINE INFUSION

     Truth sets us free.  Jesus Christ is Truth.  He is the Way.  He is the Life.  He is the Word.  He is all of these things together.  So when we learn to practice submission, helplessness, and drinking of the Spirit of God we become infused with these particular gifts of grace to the soul.  But these gifts are particularly spiritual knowledge about what Christ has said to us from the Bible.  Insights and principles are buried in the Bible to be dug up and claimed.  The Holy Spirit delivers them to us in time of need when we look to Him.

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THE CARNAL MAN

1 Cor. 3:3 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.

1 Corinthians 3:1

And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.

1 Corinthians 3:3

For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?

1 Corinthians 9:11.      If we have sown unto you spiritual things,                                     is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?

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What dos carnal mean?

• Carnal is translated from the Greek word sarkikos, which literally means “fleshly. The Scriptures contain many references to living in the flesh or by the lust of the flesh.  https://www.allaboutfollowingjesus.org/what-is-a-carnal-christian-faq.htm 

• It means one tied to the earth with his body, having no connection with the Spirit of God.  A carnal Christian is one who practices the Christian life, self-attempting to adopt and practices principles and morals consistent with the Bible without experiential reliance upon the Holy Spirit

• He is a knowledge seeker and independent religious "body-builder."

 

• Just as a child, there is a lack of vision to see "mature" things.  He sees only himself, what he thinks, what he wants, an insensitivity to God and others, an unwillingness to admit and deny himself.

 

• Pride is his god.  Deception has convinced him to advance in religion which appeals to his own taste and security.  He picks and chooses what to believe to fit his own self-building religious belief system.  

 

•  Conversely, he is: unwilling to forsake a spirit of pride, accept possible pain to his proud actions, unwilling to admit wrong, unwilling to suffer denial and hurt in order to love others.  Self-first as primary.  Religion is second as long as religion conforms, through rationalization,  to what he wants to believe.  An unwillingness to be wrong.  An unwillingness to surrender all and to live all in surrender and obedience to Christ.  He says he will in his talk, but denies it in his walk.

 

• This term is the same as acting in the "flesh."

 

• We all act carnally at times.  Not only are we Christians, we are still humans, vulnerable to the deceptions of the Sin nature, the Old Man, the flesh remnants of what once ruled us pre-salvation.

 

• However, the Holy Spirit living inside us intends to reveal what is carnal/fleshly and to move us away from this activity.  He abides in our spirit, works in our conscience, reveals from Scripture. Resisting the Holy Spirit [called grieving, quenching] dismantles the authority and work of the Spirit and is replaced by a spirit of pride to promote the self-life.

 

• Christians, though all act carnally at times, cause extreme dangerous consequences:  to the mind, the feelings, our spiritual desires, our self-confidence, our faith, hope for change, lack of account of spiritual fruit, questioning our true spirituality in the presence of our others, damaging the reputation of what Christians stand for, destroying eternal rewards, damaging relationships, making Christian disciplines boring and unproductive, etc.

 

• Carnality may be occasional or it can be more typical of a Christian.  Christians who display a constant temperament of the following may be in a carnal state.  Warning:  if there is not conviction, salvation may be in question:
• giving to practice lust and its gratifications; sexual sins, including immodest dress that guides the eyes and sexual desires of others to the body and no attempt to attract others to their spirit of a Christ-ruled life. 
• anger, resentment, bitterness, unforgiveness
• pleasure seeking that offends the glory of God
• fear of admitting wrong 
• divisive, critical spirit of others, unwilling to pray for others, gossip
• rallying others to empathize with personal pain by putting down the reputation of another
• the "Me" centered life.  Whatever is done or said is about "me."  Watch your words.  Do you listen to others completely?  Do you control your tongue when needed?  Do you want others to hear your pain?  
• in the church setting:  carnal Christians hands each other in the "flesh" not the "Spirit."  Discontent and division push the body of believes from each other and from objective prayer and the search from the Scriptures.  They walk by feeling.  They do not bear each others' weaknesses.  They refuse to accept responsibility to handle conflict in the New Testament manner.  They spread information to destroy a person [many times, a pastor], or a group in the church.  Most all church division is carnal.  Most disgusts our Lord and blemishes His reputation and weakens His cause.  Be not ever guilty of joining a church faction against anyone.  Search the Scripture.  Examine your heart.  Remain guarded.

  

• But he seeks knowledge about...but does not rely on the Spirit. 

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THE SPIRITUAL MAN

Inside us is the spiritual man.  He was created in us by Christ Jesus for the dwelling place of the Godhead: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  It is the temple of the Holy Spirit.  It is the place whereby all plans are brought to action to conform our soul and our body into the image of God.  When we accepted Christ, we accepted His purpose of transforming us.  We have His Spirit.  He's given us His Word to learn and become shaped and changed.  We have a will to choose.  There is great fruit when we submit to His guidance.  There are chastisements when we choose to be carnal.

God's aim is to move us away from carnal things and to become children of Light in a world of darkness.  He intends to plow up our barren soul of destructive unsightly weeds and willful obstructions of stone.  He aims to turn our ground into a fertile field of producing a land of "Promised Land" type fruit.

 

Our aim is first not to do good works and win souls.  Our primary work.is on the sou as well as being a light to the lost and a passion to win them to Christ.

 

He aims to break us of our practice of sins and selfishness.  He wants us to become filled with the seeds of His Word, planting them deep within our soul.  Upon planting we will find stones, thorns, and hardened ground.  When revealed by the Holy Spirit, we must see them with contrition and godly sorrow, then turn to Christ in full abandonment from ourselves and its sins to surrender to the person and will of Christ.

The spiritual man guides us.  The Holy Spirit steering him by way of conscience and the Scripture brings us to decisions that are not easy.  Each issue, circumstance, event, challenge, decision we face has a message from the Spirit.  That message comes from Scripture to address the moment.  These messages must be made.  They address our will while our emotions of flesh resist.   

That choice in the road of decision is obedience or giving in to the flesh.  Feelings will be strong to resist the Spirit.  The Spirit is not forceful or loud.  He is quite, gentle, and yet powerful.  He will not overpower our fleshly feelings without His way of protocol.

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What is that protocol?  It is:

•  1st realizing God expects us to do nothing in our power to do right and to deny evil.  This is the motto we must live by:  I can do nothing of my own.
•  2nd we must surrender the entire experience over to Christ.
• the situation, our feelings about the situation [good and bad; the desire to please flesh, and the desire to please Christ], what we truly love, what we really want Christ to do, and the complete yield of ourselves to Christ relying on His help to intervene.
• 3rd we must believe, with spiritual desire dictated by the Holy Spirit, for Christ to intervene upon our flesh and soul, to overcome every opposition to Christ's will.  We must look to Christ, yield to Christ, surrender to Christ, expect and trust Christ.  Our eyes must remain fixed upon Him, not our flesh and its messages.  
• 4th, part of believing is waiting and abiding in the Spirit of Christ.  

Romans 8: 13 for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body [note:  the emphasis is on our choice of responsibilly; if we fulfill resisting the flesh we are endowed with more spiritual power than we thought or feel.  We will be infused with that power after we follow these steps], you will live.

14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

Philippians 2:13 (NLT) 

13 For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. 

• This is a crucial time.  It is doing our part of exercising our will against the flesh.  During our fight with evil tendencies, we must look to Christ and remain fixed on Christ, knowing we can do nothing.  It is complete leaning on the Person of Christ to deliver and rid the evil plaguing our soul.  Waiting must be fixed until freedom is complete.

From my own experience [others may differ] but freedom and the deliverance into the peace of God comes after a short time of minutes; I'd say about 5-8 minutes.  I hate to fix a time. But this is normally the average time for me.

 

• We can expect results.  When practiced, this protocol [covenant, agreement] brings victory and growth.  We will experience not only silence to the flesh but filling with the Spirit of God. You will feel all of the fruit of the Spirit, not just one or a few.  The peace of God will overshadow you.  The internal conflict will go away.  Whenever I have practiced this, I have always had victory and growth.  I must admit that I have failed to practice it and committed to dismantling "carnality."

 

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 Becoming the spiritual person does not mean entering into a stage of never going backward or giving into the flesh, acting in a carnal way.  We must be aware of the devil's devices.  We should never assume we have completely overcome any sin or behavior.  Positionally, legally, in Christ there answers to overcoming any sin and becoming like Christ.  They have  been poured into us.  To experience the victories and the transformations we must practice "the protocols" of scripture.  As we learn what to "put away" and what to "put on" in Christ, we must exercise faith.  Faith is leaving the experience in question to surrendering to the condition promised by Christ.  Faith is abandonment from what Christ forbids.  Faith yields to the Person of Christ more than just the law of Christ.  Faith believes Christ emanates His law [agreement from Scripture] what we are to do.  

 

Faith admits we can do nothing.  Faith surrenders each and every detail of opposition to Christ.  Faith lays them down to Christ.  Faith says, "I can do nothing, helps me Lord."  Faith then waits.  Faith ignores images of carnality.  Faith looks only to Christ.  Faith trusts Christ for help.  Faith brings what we ask for.

Much of today's teaching on prayer is in error about praying for something.  We are led to believe that ask and believe is solely associated with asking for temporal help;  health, relationships, material things, ease of social pains, successes, etc.

When Christ explains prayer, in the Gospels, it has little to nothing to do with the temperal.  Never did Jesus pray for things or for people to treat Him right.  He prayed for His Father's will.  Furthermore, He laid aside His wants for the Father's will to play out.  He knew His human body was frail, so He yielded it to God, trusted Himself to the Father.  The result:  the Father sent angels to Him to minister to Him.

The "asking and believe" rule we love to live by must be understood from the basis of John 15.  This phrase must be understood from the reference of bearing fruit.  We all want to bear inward spiritual fruit.  Nowhere does the Bible teach about material fruit; though, when we produce inward fruit, God is fixed to make outward things to abound within the plan of His will.

Prayer is asking for the life of Jesus to flow in our total being. 

Fruit-bearing is our work.  We must plant the Seed, water our hearts with the Spirit on a continual need basis, but God gives the increase.  We plant, we water, God makes grow and gives the increase.  When faced with need, the crop seems to be failing while the weeds seem to be growing, we show those weeds to Christ, ask Him to help us remove them, then ask for His life to grow righteousness in our ground of heart.

Practically, we do our part, God does the rest.  When facing a spiritual problem which affects our spiritual field of growth, we must immediately and consciously judge ourselves helpless to know what to do and helpless to do anything our own.  We do not know the Spirit's way nor how to implement Him.  

 So, we turn ourselves away from the temptation and look to Christ.  Turning to Christ is called repentance.  Repentance is a constant action in the Christian life. We repent before we sin as well as after we sin.  Repentance if looking away from ourselves to Jesus alone to help us.  Then we fix our soul down into Him until He answers.

This is asking and believing and receiving that which we desire.  The desire is for fruit.  The desire is for eliminating the obstacle to our union of peace with God. 

 

 

 

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TO LIVE ACCORDING TO THE SPIRIT

1. Involves oneness.  We have to be in agreement with the Spirit.  We have to agree what is right and wrong from His perspective.  We have to them listen and desire to follow His voice.
2. A desire to please the Spirit means a concentration of what He's saying.  We obey Him because we love Him, says Jesus.
3. There is much conscious care to guard and feed the soul with good things, good spiritual food.
4. There must be evidences of obeying the Spirit.  There must be advancement.  
5. If the Spirit speaks and there is more resistance to His leadings, then something is major wrong and could seriously question the fact of salvation.  To continually choose the world's ways which oppose God's is exposed to similar judgements and dangerous results as the lost person.  
6. Chastisement is about God judging our sins as a consequence, not as a sentence to hell.  In Christ we no longer live under the sentence of wrath.  Rather we live under the relationship of chastisement as children.  We can never lose our legal relationship with God.  But we can suffer many losses of the soul and its desired outcomes.  Failure is the sure result of sin.  Life and fruitfulness are sure results of choosing the ways of the Spirit.  Follow the Spirit, experience knowing the presence of God and His rich positive dealings, know great peace, great joy. and great love for God and others.  Hence you will do more good, accomplish more in your labors, and more restraint with opinions and more good love to others.