God breathed into man and he became a living creature. No other created living thing had God’s breath. Man’s body was created to be a pure vessel for his soul. Yet, Satan tempted man and he corrupted that body. The ingestion of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil introduced this corruption. The result was a sentence of death which is on each and every one of us.
Immediately, man knew he was naked. Corrupting the body did not make him naked but made him feel something that he had not felt before: Shame. The body had nothing to be shameful for because he was not ashamed before he ate the fruit yet he knew the body had been corrupted since he had eaten that which he should not have eaten He ate and digested through the body. He had corrupted his body and it became shameful. He had never felt shame before and tried to cover it.
The natural state of the flesh is to seek further corruption. It ingests harmful drugs and exposes itself to further sinful acts to continue in that corruption. The corruption of the flesh is exciting but never fulfilling. It promises more than God could ever give you. It delivers more shame which continues to be covered.
The flesh seeks to worship the created rather than the Creator. This worship glorifies flesh. The worship seeks to satisfy the flesh at all costs. Songs are sung of its corruption and sacrifices of worship are made.
The flesh gathers those around who claim they are not ashamed. They indulge in further corruptions of the flesh. They continue to explore that which God has prohibited. They tempt God’s wrath. He gives them over to their shamefulness. They quickly fall to depths deeper than ever imagined.
The flesh forgets God and He gives those who no longer acknowledge Him to a corrupt mind. This corruption has made the spirit dead and the mind corrupt. New shameful acts are created through the flesh which also corrupts the mind. Values of right and wrong cannot be determined with corrupt minds. Eventually, that which is right becomes wrong and wrong becomes right.
The things of God no longer make sense to those whose minds have been so thoroughly corrupted. They have no means of discerning God’s will, His holiness or His fulfillment. They think that these things are foolish. This is natural. It is absolutely natural.
The natural man has a dead spirit. This means his spirit cannot respond to the things of God. That is the way it is with all dead things. They are observable but cannot respond to the same stimuli that living things respond to. The natural man cannot respond to godly things because it is as if they are invisible to him. He does not believe they exist. Speaking of such things ranges from foolishness to madness for the natural man.
There is no way that the natural man will ever turn back toward that which is wholesome without somehow invigorating the spirit. The spirit is the means of communication with God. It is the only means of restoring the glory which God originally placed within man. The spirit responds to God and changes man from the inside out.
Man will either set his mind on the things of the spirit or the things of the flesh. They will always be in opposition to each other.
Which one have you set your mind on?
1 Corinthians 2:14 (NIV)
The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
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