Face Up To It – You are Carnal

O! how I so want to be carnally minded sometimes. I don’t mean carnally minded like doing the stuff we obviously know to be bad but things like sulking, building on the evil thoughts I sometimes have toward certain people, eating even when I know I ought to stop and such like. Of course the devil then adds to it by saying things like “why do you always have to be tough resisting those things? It’s okay to be human sometimes” making it sound like to be human is to give in to any and every feeling which is a lie of the devil. The ability to think and control ourselves is one of the things that makes man higher than other animals. 

I must admit that sometimes I do give in to these feelings; but what I find amazing about myself is that when I preach about carnal Christians, I have my mind on people that do the obviously wrong things or are not heavenly minded. I have known for a long time that being carnally minded is to live “in the flesh” but I prefer to think that living in the flesh is doing those obviously wrong things. It just somehow refuses to register in my brain that to be carnally minded is to yield to the flesh so that when I am indulging my wrong desires, thereby indulging my flesh, I am carnally minded. 

Romans 8: 7 “For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s will.”

The important thing is that despite that God desires to be Lord in my life, I have deliberately dethroned Him thinking I am installing myself through satisfying myself, but actually enthroning the devil who rules through the flesh and the thing about satan is that he never misses using any opportunity. Honestly, I am beginning to suspect that a bell goes off in hell as soon as any believer gets into the flesh, chiming out opportunity! Opportunity and all the demons begin to scramble to ensure that they do not miss the opportunity. As soon as you give into your feeling, the downward spiral of your mind is so fast you will be shocked. You only wanted to self-indulge for a short while and here you are in depression or maybe something worse. Is it amazing therefore, that a believer ends up in depression living on anti-depressant or something even worse?

Galatians 5: 17 “The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants.”

You know, evil is evil so that no matter how big or small the sin may appear, it has the potential of destroying one’s entire life. Maybe since I am female, I know a lot more about women so ladies please bear with me as I use you once more as examples. I believe women fall for this self-indulgence more than men because we often feel that we are to be indulged. Indulgence may not always be the best thing. I used to have a sweet tooth but I must tell you when I indulge, all I want is more sugar you are never satisfied. At the beginning, you think you will just have a little, then a little more and a little more and then the real craving kicks. Every time we indulge ourselves, this is what happens so that we want more until we end up frustrating other people because we become needy. It also destroys because carnality brings death. 

Romans 8: 6 “So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.”