“Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” (Romans 8:7-8)
Does your family have a family recipe for salad dressing? Henry’s mom had an amazing salad dressing recipe that she made every Sunday afternoon. Henry loved that salad dressing! He did not even like salad if it didn’t have his mom’s homemade salad dressing on it. He could eat almost anything if that salad dressing was on top!
There was a trick to this salad dressing, though. You had to shake it up before you could pour it out onto your salad! The oil and vinegar in the salad dressing would separate (come apart) if you left the bottle sitting too long on the tabletop. Unless you shook the bottle to mix the oil and vinegar together again, they would stay in two separate parts. If you were to pour the dressing out without mixing it up first, it would come out tasting really gross.
The way that oil and vinegar naturally separate is kind of a picture of the way spiritual things and fleshly things are separate from one another. What is the “flesh”? Is it your skin or your organs? No. When we talk about the “flesh” like it is talked about in the Bible, we are describing sinful human nature. The flesh is what makes us want to give in to sinful temptations. It is a part of every human being, because we are all born with a sinful nature. As we keep turning away from our sins and keep turning toward God, we are walking more and more in the Spirit, and that means we will not do what the flesh tempts us to do.
To be at “enmity” with God means to be at odds with Him, to be against Him, to be His enemy. God and the flesh are enemies! They are opposites, like light and dark. Sinful nature is not something that can be nearby God. God is holy, so He cannot stand sin.
Because we are sinners, and because God is holy, we are born as natural enemies of God. He loves us but cannot stand sin. So Jesus Christ came, took on the likeness of fleshly nature, and yet He never sinned! That is why Jesus is so wonderful: He is our Bridge back to God! Because Jesus was 100% God AND 100% human, He is the only One Who can change us so that we do not have to be the enemies of God.
Because God is holy, He is the natural Enemy of our sinful nature.
My Response:
» Do I walk in the temptations of the flesh, or do I turn away from them to follow God?
» Am I trusting in Jesus to be the Bridge between me and God?
» Am I choosing to walk in the Spirit like Jesus did when He faced temptations as a human being?