THE WORD: 16So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what
is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so
that you are not to do whatever you want.
18But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the
law. 19The acts of the flesh are obvious:
sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20idolatry and
witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition,
dissensions, factions 21and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit
the kingdom of God. 22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness
and self-control. Against such
things there is no law. 24Those who belong to Christ Jesus have
crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25Since we live by the Spirit, let
us keep in step with the Spirit. 26Let
us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. – Galatians 5:16-26
MY TRUTH: There is so
much to say about this passage! We are
never going to get rid of our flesh. It
will always be present fighting against the Spirit. However this conflict is good! Praise God for it, for this is how we are
able to recognize right from wrong.
Without this conflict we wouldn’t know which way to go. God has given us free will so we have to make
a choice whether we will obey the Spirit or succumb to our flesh. God has given us this guide to know when we
are operating in the flesh versus the Spirit so we have no excuse. We just have to make ourselves aware of this
reality every moment of the day so we won’t get caught up in acts of the
flesh. Now this can be pretty difficult
given that sometimes there are more fleshly things in the earth to keep us
distracted than spiritual things. That
is why it is important for us to always be tuned in to God and know the
difference between fleshly acts and Spiritual ones which is why I am so glad
God provided us with this passage of scripture; it’s plain and simple! The flesh will always be present but thank
God that if we have accepted the Lord as our Savior we also have the Spirit
dwelling in us to keep us on point.
Therefore since our renewed selves live by the Spirit let us do
spiritual things! (v. 25)
Side bar: The other day I
was totally operating in the flesh….smh.
I had let my flesh win. Many of
the acts of the flesh are pretty obvious and easy to be aware of (i.e. sexual
immorality, hatred, drunkenness) but some can sort of ride under the radar and
are not the “big sins” we always hear about.
So I now realize that the other day I was partaking in the fleshly act
of discord and fits of rage in my household.
I was being a drama queen over who knows what and discord and rage was
all up in the atmosphere. It was hard
for me to turn this around which surprised me and made me aware that I myself
Mykia can do NOTHING without God. I
thought I was further along in my walk and could shut stuff like this down
immediately but I realized that no matter where I am in my walk I have to
realize nothing is by my own doing but through God’s help. We may think having a little fit and causing
discord is small but it is not of God and He is not pleased when we do these
things. Again we will never be perfect
and will ALWAYS struggle with acts of the flesh but thank God that the Spirit
is there to calm us down and to convict us.
In hindsight, when I started to feel rage rising up in me I should have
paused, prayed, and activated love and self-control but I failed. However, through my failure I learned this valuable
lesson about what to do next time and realized how I need to work on building
some of the fruit of the Spirit and that I can do nothing on my own but only
with God. So I guess really there was no
failure but a gaining of wisdom.
A note about the
graphics below: For easy reference
on acts of the flesh versus fruit of the spirit I have created the visual below
using what is presented in the New International Version of the bible. In parenthesis I have placed synonyms for
these words as they are presented in the following translations of the
bible: Common English Bible, Good News
Bible, Amplified Bible. A star (*)
beside a word or phrase indicates my own interpretation of the word based on
synonyms that I have looked up via a thesaurus or my own opinion based on my biblical
interpretation. Please help keep me
honest and if you have an alternative or disagree please please post and let me
know. I love learning from and hearing
the opinions of others. In general, feel
free to place other synonyms for any of the words that will help us better
recognize these things in our daily lives.
Also I encourage you to write out some actions that describe the acts of
the flesh and fruit of the spirit. I
started doing this and was going to include these actions in the visual,
however after thinking I thought it would be best for you to do this yourself
to represent how God is convicting you in these different areas. I did not want to put actions in your mouth
that you may not agree with or that God hasn’t convicted you with, which would’ve
come off as judgmental. So I encourage
you to do this yourself and to add to it as God reveals His truths to you.
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