Our Flesh Hinders Our Purpose Now
Flesh is getting our God-given needs met outside of dependence on God alone. If we don’t understand what our personal flesh patterns are, and how flesh develops, it will continue to develop and interfere with the learning process. Before our nature was exchanged at the cross, the only resource we had available to get our needs met was the flesh, also called our “self” and the “self-life.” Flesh perpetuates our misconceptions, especially telling us that if we really give in to God, bad things will happen. Though we may know differently, we’ll often feel that it might be true. So we often unwittingly allow the flesh to continue as head honcho, until God sets it up to fail. As we begin to understand our new nature, and that all of our needs are met already, we will cooperate with God as He consumes our flesh.
Wanting To Maintain Control Hinders Our Purpose Now
The goal of flesh is to control, so as God brings healing into our lives, and we begin to enter into His rest and freedom, we more and more find ourselves giving up control to God. We all find it hard to change, however, because change means having to deal with something new. So flesh comes along and gives us a reason to resist change, or to want to control how we are changed. This is normal, though the Lord will deal with this in His time as well. Over time, the initiative and motivation for our lives is transferred from us to Him, and we learn to accept change on a daily basis because we are stable and secure in our relationship with Him. We know He loves us, values us, accepts and approves of us now, regardless of where we are on the learning path. So any changes He makes can be, if not understood, at least endured.