Good day dear people of God. I hope we are all refreshed and revitalized for the new week.
Last week we looked at the reality of the existence of an on-going conflict between the Spirit and the flesh as contrasting influences on earth. We ended with a reminder that God through His grace has provided victory for us in Christ through the enablement of the Holy Spirit. I sincerely hope that we are applying these principles to our lives and that we are taking the right steps to make good progress in our walk with God in grace.
This week I want us to proceed in our journey through the epistle to the Galatians:
“Now the actions of the flesh are obvious…I am telling you now, as I have told you in the past, that people who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” Galatians 5:19-21 International Standard Version
These verses above contain a list of works or actions of the flesh but I have left out the individual items on the list to reduce the length of my post and also because I do not intend to keep us fixated on the wrong attributes. However I must point out that this list is not exhaustive but merely representative as I am sure we all can readily roll out more attributes of ungodly lives. This is the reason Paul after mentioning these specific attributes says “…and things like these” (Galatians 5:21).
I believe this list of vices corresponds with issues the original recipients of this epistle were exposed to in their own society. If the letter for example had been addressed to the Cretans among whom Titus was serving as a minister of the Gospel, then perhaps issues like lying, violence and gluttony would have been prominent (see Titus 1:12). And if it had been an epistle to a church in Nigeria in our modern day, one can be sure that greed, corruption and tribalism would have been high up on the list! My point is that it is not only these 16 or 17 attributes (depending on which Bible translation you read) that are works or actions of the flesh.
Galatians 5:21 echoes 1st Corinthians 6:9 & 10. The kingdom of God is not the inheritance of people who live like this (see Revelation 22:15). People who make a practice of such a lifestyle demonstrate that they are still in the flesh and are firmly under the control of the flesh. Let us however, read what 1st Corinthians 6:11 has to say about believers in Christ:
“And some of you were these things, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (Lexham English Bible)
The point is that we as believers should not live that way. We shouldn’t make a practice of such things. All such attributes belong to a different class of people in an opposing camp. Next week we will look at the attributes of people in our own class. Life in the Spirit is different from life in the flesh. We are different and we should live differently. We are washed, sanctified, justified already! That’s our heritage.
Let God’s Spirit dominate your mind this week and always. Refuse to allow the flesh have its way. That is the life the grace of God has brought us to.
My song for the week is “How Sweet The Sound” by Citizen Way.
Have a lovely day and a beautiful week.
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