July 20
“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16)
We have been focusing the last few days on the problem of spending hours and hours of time on the internet “entertaining” ourselves with binge watching or worse, exposing ourselves to evil. These are clear examples of times when we willingly and knowingly set our minds on the flesh. But there are many other examples of our minds being set on the flesh, and I’d like to explore these a bit also.
Have you ever experienced a time when you just seem to have a foul and negative attitude about someone else and just couldn’t seem to shake it? Perhaps you felt hurt or sinned against, perhaps they were mean or rude to you, perhaps they did something to injure you, but whatever it is or was, you have feelings ranging from dislike to distain to anger to resentment. Husbands and wives can feel this way toward one another. No matter how justified we feel we are in our feelings toward that person, our minds are in the flesh. If we cannot give thanks for the person and have a genuine spirit of tenderhearted love and forgiveness for them, from our hearts, then our minds are set on the flesh, and we need to repent and set our minds on eternal things, giving thanks for that person and how the Lord is using even the unpleasant situation to make us like Him.
Many or all of us have had temptations or fallen into envy, lust, anxiety, frustration, exasperation, hopelessness, laziness, anger, covetousness, hardness of heart, etc., and the first step is to become aware of when we are in those states. Becoming aware of when we are sinning and not just justifying these emotions and mental states in our minds is a very important and critical step in overcoming temptation, one which I believe many Christians fail to take in important areas of their lives. I think that simply recognizing sinful thoughts and being able to call them what they are is at least half the battle in overcoming temptation. Once we have identified that we are sinning and become aware of it, once we are conscious that our minds are in the flesh and not in the Spirit, we are then in a position to cry out to the Lord and ask Him to forgive our sins and replace our fleshly thoughts with spiritual thoughts. Scripture is extremely helpful here, as is rejoicing and giving thanks, which we will discuss in our next principle for overcoming temptation.
Recognizing a sinful state of mind, repenting of it, and with the Lord’s help turning it into a time of spiritual victory, is an extremely critical spiritual skill. Replacing fleshly thoughts with spiritual thoughts takes mental toughness and discipline. Like a muscle or a skill set, it can be developed and sharpened and taken to new heights. That is what we must be working toward each day in our quest to be like Jesus in all things and walk by the Spirit.