I started this series yesterday on how God talks to you, based on a message I heard at Church from a Guest speaker, Emily Valler, who is preparing to be a YWAM (Youth With A Mission) medical missionary. Her message really spoke to me so I am summarizing it here so you can be blessed as well. She shared three sources that speak to us and seven ways God speaks to us. Yesterday I covered the way the Devil speaks to us. Please go back and read that if you can, it will help you know when you are under attack.
Today I am writing about the second source she described as speaking to us--our own fleshly human soul. She quoted "Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" The word for "deceitful" means "to rise up, crooked, deceitful, polluted" The word for "wicked" is frail, feeble, melancholy, desperate, incurable, sick." The fact that the verse ends with "who can know it?" tells that our capacity to understand truth with our own reasoning is flawed. How did that happen?
The human mind became corrupted by sin--we can not trust our human logic. Emily shared the story in Genesis 3:1-6 of how Eve was tempted by the devil, true, but he appealed to what her natural senses told her and obscured the command of God with the instincts of her own flesh. Here's the story below.
Ge 3:1 ¶ Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?"
Ge 3:2 And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden;
Ge 3:3 "but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.'"
Ge 3:4 Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die.
Ge 3:5 "For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
Ge 3:6 ¶ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.
Notice that the Devil appealed to her own power of reasoning--she could decide for herself better than God. He appealed to her desire for power, independence, wisdom and pleasure. This is the nature of our flesh--it craves autonomy from God and prefers reasoning over God's truth.
This fleshly voice seeks comfort and pleasure--such as when people use drugs or food for comfort rather than the comfort of the Lord.
This fleshly voice would rather figure out a plan and then pray for blessing instead of seeking God for what He wants.
This fleshly voice says, "we cannot possibly pay tithes til we can afford it" even though God has promised blessing if we obey.
This fleshly voice says " I can not forgive--what they have done is so evil, even if in light of Christ's sacrifice and forgiveness, God promises freedom and healing.
Gal. 5 sums up the nature of the flesh and the motivations that will continually speak to us from our own soul:.
Ga 5:17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.
Ga 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness,
Ga 5:20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies,
Ga 5:21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
This is a picture of our flesh in a nutshell--how do we avoid listening to the voice of our own flesh that seeks its own power, pleasure and comfort?
Ga 5:16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.--We who have been born again have the real power and nature of Christ in us. He is also speaking to us and we choose to hear his voice above all the others we are bombarded with. More on this tomorrow.
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