Key to Life
We attack ourselves in this war by building an imaginary box of what we want in our minds. Fairy tales are destructive to us and a great war strategy for the enemy. They are in our imagination and conflict with what God wants (2 Corinthians 10:3-6). Pursuing what we want (our fairy tales) is living in the flesh. We defeat ourselves when we seek the physical pleasures of life instead of spiritual things. Spiritual things give us much more satisfaction and pleasure.
Here is the key to life: the only way to be victorious in this war is to walk in the Spirit and not the flesh. Galatians 5:16 -23 If you walk in the Spirit you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. The only way one can walk in the Spirit is to live in the Spirit (have the Holy Spirit living in them). When our spirit is made alive (the new man), then the born again believer must yield to his own spirit (see video: Trichotomy of Man) and connect to the Holy Spirit within him. This connection is thus walking in God's Spirit. When connecting to the Spirit with our walk, then we access God’s love.
Love fulfills the law and is at the core of all our need. God is love. 1 John 4:7-8. There is no love apart from Him. Love is also an attribute of God- fruit of His Holy Spirit. Love is not a feeling. Anything that is not of love is of the flesh. Love is patient, kind, not prideful, unselfish, doesn't think evil, believes all things, endures all things, seeks the truth and hates iniquity. Living by love gives us life more abundantly. We can have peace and joy through walking in the Spirit. If we are not walking in love (the Spirit) we are walking in the flesh.
When we live in the flesh we are prone to living by our emotions. We let our actions be led by our emotions/feelings. We feel angry/depressed (anger is a feeling; depression is anger turned inward), jealous, lonely, scared, etc… But we don't have to feel those negative emotions. People allow their emotions to dictate their actions but that shouldn't be. What is right based on love should dictate our actions. For example: if someone in a car runs over your child in the street, many feelings could arise from this event. You could feel devastated, angry, depressed, vengeful, defeated, etc… Only through love can you properly assess the event that has happened and through the eyes of love can make the proper decision of which emotions you should allow to occupy your mind. Our finest example is Jesus on the cross. He was beaten, crucified and dying. Yet while he was dying on the cross instead of anger or hate he said, " Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." Even though he was suffering terribly, he drew upon his love and did not fulfill the flesh by allowing negative feelings. Emotions/feelings result from a decision. We decide what we want to feel. There is a thought; then there is a decision; and then there is an emotion/feeling that follows (Chart 2). Decisions. God allows us a free will to make our own decisions. Often our thinking is confused and we don't know how to make decisions. Many times we wait on God to take a problem from us while He is waiting for us to put it down through love by a decision to walk in His spirit.
When we live in the flesh it is by pride. Pride and selfishness go hand in hand. Self-esteem needs balance. We need proper love of ourselves. In this order: God loves us, we need to love ourselves properly, and we need to love others. We need to see ourselves as He sees us. The perceptions that we have of ourselves is out of balance without Him. God is the center (balance) and anything on either side is out of balance (Chart 3; see video: Fear, Pride, Control). Either direction away from God is pride which is low or unbalanced self-esteem. Self-esteem is based in love. Without love, we have poor self-esteem. There is no love in pride. Pride is against God. Pride is walking in the flesh, it is fleshly based.
Our fleshly disposition and thoughts are pride. Most anger is pride. Rarely anger is not pride based and can present itself as self-preservation or indignation (righteous anger toward sin). But the majority of anger is pride (Chart 4). Anger results from frustration. We get frustrated when we want to control something, when we want it to work our way- the way that we think life should go (the fairy tale). Wanting to control something results from our pride and our selfishness. We make a little box in our mind of how we think life should go day-to-day and when the events of life do not fit our little box we become frustrated. We are selfish because we're not open to what God is trying to work in our lives. We need to tentatively plan our day and our life to fit what we believe God's will is for us but we must be open and flexible to his guidance throughout the day at each and every moment. We ask God to guide us, but when He does, we get upset if it's too hard. We also forget that he is guiding us when things happen outside of our little box that we have drawn in our minds. 1 John 5:14-15 says we should have confidence that we will have whatsoever we ask of Him if it is according to His will. Sometimes, we forget what we pray for. We ask Him to direct our path and then forget that he is directing our path. We shouldn't get upset if God does not appear to answer our prayer at all, or in our time, we need to learn to wait on Him and to take no as an answer. We should love him enough to want what He wants for our lives. God molds and shapes us into what He wants us to be (His plan for us far exceeds anything we would want). We don't like to go through adversity: we don't like illness, bankruptcy, the death of a loved one, the loss of a job etc… That's where we have a lack of love for God, a lack of trust, and a lack of faith.
Fear is a fleshly opposition to love. 1 John 4:18, "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." One cannot walk in love and have fear at the same time. They oppose one another. Any time you don't have love, fear is present. Fear produces our low self-esteem (pride). When we fear, we don't love God, we don't love ourselves, and we don't love others. Fear is why we have a host of negative feelings and actions. When we fear we’re angry, when we fear we’re jealous, when we fear we hate, and when we fear we’re lonely, etc. Fear produces selfishness and pride which produces discontentment, un-thankfulness, greed and every wicked state of self. Fear is the fleshly motivator of all carnal decisions. Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life are all based in fear (1 John 2:16). Although it is very hard to see how fear is connected to each of these, it is at the very core. Lust of the flesh. The flesh wants to feel good; the flesh does not want to endure any pain or suffering. It is easy to see that this is selfishness. We fear suffering, we fear giving up what we want. We are scared because if we agree to give up the things that we want and make us feel good, we give up control. We have to give up our control and fear to attain love. Hence, the struggle of the war we are in. Lust of the eyes. We desire to have physical things and lean to them instead of God. Matthew 6:24 says we cannot serve God and money. Colossians 3:5 says that covetousness is idolatry. We see all the physical things in this life that can bring us pleasure. They give us pleasure by providing comfort for our flesh. So many obstacles can be removed by having money and we can indulge our desires to have the things we see so we believe money gives us freedom. Here again the comfort and freedom is our way of wanting to control our own lives because we are too scared to completely submit to God and walk in love. Pride of life. Letting go of our pride means surrendering to God. We won’t let go and walk in love because we are too scared to turn loose of our control. Fear and pride are inseparable. Fear. We fear many things. We’re scared that our rent won't get paid, our utilities will get cut off, that our spouse is cheating on us, that our children will wreck their lives, that certain people will not love us, that people will reject us, we fear pain, and we fear diseases. What is extremely sad in all of this is that we don't diligently seek to have perfect love in God. Perfect love casts out fear! We are made to want perfect peace. Isaiah 26:3 says if you keep your mind and focus on God and you walk in love, you can attain perfect peace. We have to trust God, give up control of our lives, and walk in love by the Holy Spirit (walking in the Spirit).
People only do what they want (Chart 6). There is a gain for them or they would not do it. A person endures surgery because there is a gain of feeling better after the recovery. We go to work because we like to work or because working is necessary for the provision for the things that we want: to eat, sleep in a house or we like to have a spouse and children. When we choose to be angry or depressed there is a gain for that. We get to play the martyr, get to manipulate someone with our anger, or we get the satisfaction of feeling self-righteous. Even when we are walking in love, we get a gain of being right with God and a clear conscience. Identifying our gain takes introspection and honesty. God will reveal your gain (motive) to you if you ask Him. Because we have sin in our bodies and we are not perfect like Christ, our walk is in and out of the Spirit (not in and out of salvation). Since we are in and out of our walk in the Spirit, so are we in and out of love. Our actions vary toward ourselves and other people. When we fail someone by our selfishness, we do not love them at that time. Just because we say we love someone only means we have decided to diligently put forth the effort to love them at all times, but at different times we fail. Love is a moment by moment decision and can only be achieved through the Spirit of God (walking in the spirit).
When we are angry, we get mad at God, ourselves, our circumstances, and others but we don't see that our perception is to blame. We would rather blame others than take responsibility for our wrong perception of life (fairy tales). Until we start looking at the world as it really is - this war we are in - we will only be spinning our wheels, being ineffectual and not understanding other spiritual matters. Without understanding, we are bound to staying in the hard physical realm of life. This war is far from easy. If it was easy, how would we be glorifying God? If it was easy there would be no struggle to make a decision to follow Him daily and surrender your life to Him. By choosing Him and walking in love, we glorify God and magnify His name.
Here is the key to life: the only way to be victorious in this war is to walk in the Spirit and not the flesh. Galatians 5:16 -23 If you walk in the Spirit you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. The only way one can walk in the Spirit is to live in the Spirit (have the Holy Spirit living in them). When our spirit is made alive (the new man), then the born again believer must yield to his own spirit (see video: Trichotomy of Man) and connect to the Holy Spirit within him. This connection is thus walking in God's Spirit. When connecting to the Spirit with our walk, then we access God’s love.
Love fulfills the law and is at the core of all our need. God is love. 1 John 4:7-8. There is no love apart from Him. Love is also an attribute of God- fruit of His Holy Spirit. Love is not a feeling. Anything that is not of love is of the flesh. Love is patient, kind, not prideful, unselfish, doesn't think evil, believes all things, endures all things, seeks the truth and hates iniquity. Living by love gives us life more abundantly. We can have peace and joy through walking in the Spirit. If we are not walking in love (the Spirit) we are walking in the flesh.
When we live in the flesh we are prone to living by our emotions. We let our actions be led by our emotions/feelings. We feel angry/depressed (anger is a feeling; depression is anger turned inward), jealous, lonely, scared, etc… But we don't have to feel those negative emotions. People allow their emotions to dictate their actions but that shouldn't be. What is right based on love should dictate our actions. For example: if someone in a car runs over your child in the street, many feelings could arise from this event. You could feel devastated, angry, depressed, vengeful, defeated, etc… Only through love can you properly assess the event that has happened and through the eyes of love can make the proper decision of which emotions you should allow to occupy your mind. Our finest example is Jesus on the cross. He was beaten, crucified and dying. Yet while he was dying on the cross instead of anger or hate he said, " Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." Even though he was suffering terribly, he drew upon his love and did not fulfill the flesh by allowing negative feelings. Emotions/feelings result from a decision. We decide what we want to feel. There is a thought; then there is a decision; and then there is an emotion/feeling that follows (Chart 2). Decisions. God allows us a free will to make our own decisions. Often our thinking is confused and we don't know how to make decisions. Many times we wait on God to take a problem from us while He is waiting for us to put it down through love by a decision to walk in His spirit.
When we live in the flesh it is by pride. Pride and selfishness go hand in hand. Self-esteem needs balance. We need proper love of ourselves. In this order: God loves us, we need to love ourselves properly, and we need to love others. We need to see ourselves as He sees us. The perceptions that we have of ourselves is out of balance without Him. God is the center (balance) and anything on either side is out of balance (Chart 3; see video: Fear, Pride, Control). Either direction away from God is pride which is low or unbalanced self-esteem. Self-esteem is based in love. Without love, we have poor self-esteem. There is no love in pride. Pride is against God. Pride is walking in the flesh, it is fleshly based.
Our fleshly disposition and thoughts are pride. Most anger is pride. Rarely anger is not pride based and can present itself as self-preservation or indignation (righteous anger toward sin). But the majority of anger is pride (Chart 4). Anger results from frustration. We get frustrated when we want to control something, when we want it to work our way- the way that we think life should go (the fairy tale). Wanting to control something results from our pride and our selfishness. We make a little box in our mind of how we think life should go day-to-day and when the events of life do not fit our little box we become frustrated. We are selfish because we're not open to what God is trying to work in our lives. We need to tentatively plan our day and our life to fit what we believe God's will is for us but we must be open and flexible to his guidance throughout the day at each and every moment. We ask God to guide us, but when He does, we get upset if it's too hard. We also forget that he is guiding us when things happen outside of our little box that we have drawn in our minds. 1 John 5:14-15 says we should have confidence that we will have whatsoever we ask of Him if it is according to His will. Sometimes, we forget what we pray for. We ask Him to direct our path and then forget that he is directing our path. We shouldn't get upset if God does not appear to answer our prayer at all, or in our time, we need to learn to wait on Him and to take no as an answer. We should love him enough to want what He wants for our lives. God molds and shapes us into what He wants us to be (His plan for us far exceeds anything we would want). We don't like to go through adversity: we don't like illness, bankruptcy, the death of a loved one, the loss of a job etc… That's where we have a lack of love for God, a lack of trust, and a lack of faith.
Fear is a fleshly opposition to love. 1 John 4:18, "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." One cannot walk in love and have fear at the same time. They oppose one another. Any time you don't have love, fear is present. Fear produces our low self-esteem (pride). When we fear, we don't love God, we don't love ourselves, and we don't love others. Fear is why we have a host of negative feelings and actions. When we fear we’re angry, when we fear we’re jealous, when we fear we hate, and when we fear we’re lonely, etc. Fear produces selfishness and pride which produces discontentment, un-thankfulness, greed and every wicked state of self. Fear is the fleshly motivator of all carnal decisions. Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life are all based in fear (1 John 2:16). Although it is very hard to see how fear is connected to each of these, it is at the very core. Lust of the flesh. The flesh wants to feel good; the flesh does not want to endure any pain or suffering. It is easy to see that this is selfishness. We fear suffering, we fear giving up what we want. We are scared because if we agree to give up the things that we want and make us feel good, we give up control. We have to give up our control and fear to attain love. Hence, the struggle of the war we are in. Lust of the eyes. We desire to have physical things and lean to them instead of God. Matthew 6:24 says we cannot serve God and money. Colossians 3:5 says that covetousness is idolatry. We see all the physical things in this life that can bring us pleasure. They give us pleasure by providing comfort for our flesh. So many obstacles can be removed by having money and we can indulge our desires to have the things we see so we believe money gives us freedom. Here again the comfort and freedom is our way of wanting to control our own lives because we are too scared to completely submit to God and walk in love. Pride of life. Letting go of our pride means surrendering to God. We won’t let go and walk in love because we are too scared to turn loose of our control. Fear and pride are inseparable. Fear. We fear many things. We’re scared that our rent won't get paid, our utilities will get cut off, that our spouse is cheating on us, that our children will wreck their lives, that certain people will not love us, that people will reject us, we fear pain, and we fear diseases. What is extremely sad in all of this is that we don't diligently seek to have perfect love in God. Perfect love casts out fear! We are made to want perfect peace. Isaiah 26:3 says if you keep your mind and focus on God and you walk in love, you can attain perfect peace. We have to trust God, give up control of our lives, and walk in love by the Holy Spirit (walking in the Spirit).
People only do what they want (Chart 6). There is a gain for them or they would not do it. A person endures surgery because there is a gain of feeling better after the recovery. We go to work because we like to work or because working is necessary for the provision for the things that we want: to eat, sleep in a house or we like to have a spouse and children. When we choose to be angry or depressed there is a gain for that. We get to play the martyr, get to manipulate someone with our anger, or we get the satisfaction of feeling self-righteous. Even when we are walking in love, we get a gain of being right with God and a clear conscience. Identifying our gain takes introspection and honesty. God will reveal your gain (motive) to you if you ask Him. Because we have sin in our bodies and we are not perfect like Christ, our walk is in and out of the Spirit (not in and out of salvation). Since we are in and out of our walk in the Spirit, so are we in and out of love. Our actions vary toward ourselves and other people. When we fail someone by our selfishness, we do not love them at that time. Just because we say we love someone only means we have decided to diligently put forth the effort to love them at all times, but at different times we fail. Love is a moment by moment decision and can only be achieved through the Spirit of God (walking in the spirit).
When we are angry, we get mad at God, ourselves, our circumstances, and others but we don't see that our perception is to blame. We would rather blame others than take responsibility for our wrong perception of life (fairy tales). Until we start looking at the world as it really is - this war we are in - we will only be spinning our wheels, being ineffectual and not understanding other spiritual matters. Without understanding, we are bound to staying in the hard physical realm of life. This war is far from easy. If it was easy, how would we be glorifying God? If it was easy there would be no struggle to make a decision to follow Him daily and surrender your life to Him. By choosing Him and walking in love, we glorify God and magnify His name.
For a detailed understanding of walking in the Spirit, watch Key to Life video