Pastor Seyi Osanyinbi
Until we understand what the flesh is and why God had to refer to man as flesh, we might not be able to fully deal with the issue of the flesh.
Over time, we have seen believers who had always desired to become all that the Lord wanted them to be but somehow they are always hindered in one way or the other. Since the fall of man, the flesh has always stood in the way of God in reaching out completely to man but God said he will never again strive with flesh.
The word “flesh” can be used to express different things, especially as it is a natural word, but to understand it in the context that it was used, we need to find out what God saw in man that made Him call man flesh.
[biblegateway passage=”Genesis 6:1-5″ display=”Genesis 6:1-5″]
God saw that the wickedness in the heart of man was great and his imaginations were evil continually. What made Man flesh is the kind of heart he has and the imaginations that run through his mind.
From the time of Adam even till Noah and afterwards, because of the problem of the flesh, men kept offending God and no one could locate what the problem was until Jesus came and exposed the nature of sin and the dynamics of its workings.
If there was no sin, there would not be death ([biblegateway passage=”1 Corinthians 15:55–56″ display=”1 Corinthians 15:55–56″]). People die because sin exists. Sin is the power of death and sin is a kind of knowledge. What makes a man a sinner is actually what he knows and because of the knowledge he has, he is able to make his choices himself. When Adam ate the fruit and sinned, it was the knowledge in the seed that killed him.
God has not left us with the technology to deal with the issue of sin. What destroyed man was knowledge and what will save him is knowledge. Sin is a kind of knowledge that can only be dealt with by another kind of knowledge. The antidote to dealing with sin and overcoming death is to eat from the tree of life. We can only conquer death by complete obedience to God. Until people begin to change and obey God willingly, death will continue to reign over the lives of man ([biblegateway passage=”Romans 8: 19″ display=”Romans 8: 19″]). Enoch was an example of a man who walked by faith with God for a whole 300years, obeying God and didn’t taste death. God is looking for a people who will stand surely for what He wants.
One of the areas in our lives where the flesh finds expression through is in our imaginations. The problem of flesh in man is actually in his imaginations. The flesh will always find expression through our imaginations; it is in the imaginations of the heart that sin emanates from. If we can deal with this area of our lives, then we can deal with the issue of flesh.