“A CRAVING, FLESHLY HEART OR A NEW CREATION MIRACLE?”
By: J. Farrell Fisher, July 24-25, 2017
A craving, fleshly heart is because of all lives birthed in the ‘natural’ world void of the “new creation miraculous birth” through the free gift of God Himself through the shed blood of the Redeemer! Didn’t Jesus say to the ‘religious’ Nicodemus, in John 3:3, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is BORN AGAIN, he cannot see the kingdom of God”?
In fact, in John 3: 5, Jesus unveiled the process of redemptive faith! He said: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water (the water of the Word,) AND the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God,” saying also in Verse 6, “That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Peter amplified the eternal ministry of “blood redemption through Christ” when in 1 Peter 1:22-23 he wrote: “Since you have purified your souls IN OBEYING THE TRUTH through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the Word of God which lives and abides forever.” Are YOU SPIRIT-BIRTHED by the living and abiding Word of God?
A craving, fleshly heart? A life lived independent of the Word, satisfying the impulses of a fleshly mind and heart, fitting in to the natural world of sin, deceit, and fleshly indulgences, yes, disobedient to the revealed Word of God, consumed by fleshly lusts warring against one’s soul and God Himself, living in the biblical ignorance of foolish men, camouflaging devilish hearts with “beautiful and handsome appearances”, embracing one’s appearance in its sinful nature as the height of fleshly wisdom, even openly and willingly denying the revealed Word of God, accepting of fornication, uncleanness, covetousness, even disobedience to the revealed will of God while stating “I’m a believer”, but drunk on the ‘wine’ of self-will and self-pleasure assuming falsely, “God understands”! Really?
Craving, fleshly hearts for the most part live in opposition to the good, acceptable, perfect will of God, ‘satisfied’ that as they disobey, “God understands and continually forgives,” as if in all our ‘fleshly dispensations’ or understanding, God just wipes, wipes, keeps on wiping, because forgiving through the blood of Christ is capable of changing ‘my nature’ – No! He crucified your sin nature with Christ!
Holy God was not fashioned, nor ever needed to be, because God IS Holy God – always has been and forever will be, but men birthed in the image, likeness, and nature of Adam, Jesus says, “These MUST be born again, born of the Spirit, born in and through His revealed Word”!
Mortal men are not like God, nor God like mortal men! God is not flesh but Spirit, not sin-natured but divine holiness and perfect righteousness, not striving but speaking who and what He is, always has been, and forever will be, the Way, the Truth, and the Life! But mortal men too often rest in themselves and lose out on the eternal blessing of “Christ in them the hope of glory”! And how many do you know or have heard speak about their own abilities, and how blessed God must feel to have them on His team, with no consideration of what and who Christ took to the Cross with Him!
If God made us for Himself, making us free to choose how and in whom we choose to live, having been created ‘free to choose’, sadly many choose to live independently of God, reasoning, “my best effort should be acceptable to God”, but reconciliation is by His terms, not fallen men’s terms! Fallen men announce from the mind and heart of “fallen flesh”, while Holy God announces His “finished work” and only way of reconciliation in and through the “shed blood” of Christ alone! It is dangerous grounds on which men stand if they fail to heed the voice of God: “Only guiltless blood redeems, regenerates divine life within, or restores men to My eternal will, plan, and power, in overcoming the world, the flesh, and the devil!”
It was J. Wilbur Chapman who wrote years ago these words: “I know of a name that is sunk in shame, where hearts often faint and tire; But I know a Name, a precious Name, That can set that world on fire: Its sound is sweet, its letters flame. I know a Name, a precious Name, It’s Jesus!”
But, how many really live unashamed in Christ Jesus’ Name? Are there still a few “Judases” who will sell Him for a “few pieces of silver” or a “few indulgences in my fallen flesh” or a “few transgressions understanding there is no consequence for a ‘believer’”? In the “modern-day” of “church life” the modern-mind of “professing Christians” must be reminded: “The wages of sin IS death”! When did that change? Or how many ‘church folk’ do you hear refuting that Biblical declaration? Fallen human natures ‘professing faith in Christ’ are more likely than not what the Duke of Wellington said: “Men who have nice notions of religion have no business to be soldiers (of the Cross of Christ)!” So true!
A craving, fleshly heart, baptized or not, has no business declaring their dependence upon God when they live with a declaration of independence from Holy God as they willfully choose to indulge the “flesh” He crucified! It was John Bunyan, in “The Pilgrim’s Progress” (Pt.11), who wrote: “One leak will sink a ship; and one sin will destroy a sinner;” and, I add, “One sin will sink a ‘saint’ if there is no repenting and forsaking of sin and the sin nature Christ took to the Cross”! How many “Christians” do you know who truly possess a repugnance about sinning “after choosing to be Christ’s disciple” yet excuse their ‘sinning tendencies’?
1 John 3:5 says, “And you know that He (Christ Jesus) was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin,” understanding that a ‘good tree’ birthed by Christ Jesus, according to Matthew 7:18, “cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.” It certainly doesn’t mean a full tree of fruit cannot witness even “one bad apple” – it happens! If you examine studiously I John 3:5, you’ll discern at least four truths:
- Jesus was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin.”
- Christ within you is the eternal presence and manifestation of Holy God who is senseless, only abiding and never changing in eternal Truth.
- Being one with Christ means, yes, we’re to live senseless lives.
- It is the height of absurdity to profess allegiance to the Sinless Savior and Lord but believe it’s OK without any awareness of or conviction about sinning as an evidence one never knew Him! “in Him is no sin.”
If that is true, and it is, what does Paul tell us in Romans 6: 5-11? “For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, KNOWING THIS, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that WE SHOULD NO LONGER BE SLAVES OF SIN. For he who has died (were YOU crucified with Christ?) has been FREED FROM SIN. (Has YOUR body of sin been crucified with Christ?).
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, DIES NO MORE. Death no longer has dominion over Him. FOR THE DEATH THAT CHRIST DIED, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Dare I tell you that Jesus not only took our sins and sin nature upon Himself to wipe out the disgrace of sinful hearts and minds, but through His shed blood also to vanquish sin’s grip – and if we’re “joined to Christ by grace and mercy”, what spirit is it that has deceived us if we ever get to the place we say, “sinning is Ok as long as we ‘believe’ in Jesus”, when ‘belief’, true belief, true scriptural evidence, doesn’t introduce an ‘OK’ to sin!!
But some ‘compromising believers’ disavow victory in and through Jesus concerning their old sin natures! In 2 Corinthians 4:2-7 Paul tells us: “But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending every man’s conscience in the sight of God. But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age (Satan and/or the ‘false religious leaders of the day who are ‘tools of the devil’!’) has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.
For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus.” Counterfeit lights in ‘self-made followers of Jesus’ are not the Salvation Light of the Indwelling Disciple who has lived with a truly repentant heart toward God and faith only in the Christ within them, not their cheap imitation!
A.W. Pink wrote in his book “An Exposition of 1 John”, (p.115), commenting about “whoever sins has not seen Him, nor known Him,” saying: “Between abiding in Christ and sinning there is such an absolute incompatibility, that whoever sins (And keeps on saying, I JFF say!) is for the time not merely in the position of not abiding in Christ, but in the position of not having seen or known Him. In so far as he is sinning, his is virtually the very same case with that of the man who has never either seen or known Christ. The statement is very emphatic and very categorical. It is more than a mere assertion of a sort of moral inconsistency or incongruity, a certain manifest unsuitableness, in the view of common sense and right feeling. It is an assertion of absolute incompatibility, in the nature of things; and it is a very strong assertion of that, put in two forms, positively and negatively, to make it all the stronger.”
Did YOU “die with Christ”? And are YOU “abiding in Christ” through the conviction of the Holy Spirit, confession of your sin and sin nature through the Spirit, and guided by the Holy Spirit that Christ Jesus only is YOUR WAY, YOUR TRUTH, and YOUR LIFE? You “live resurrection life” because of the Spirit of the Resurrected Christ in you, yes again, “the hope of glory”! It’s not “servile pretense” but “Spirit of Christ presence”, being Himself in and through your convicted, broken, cleansed heart by the Blood of the Lamb, washing you, resurrecting you to be Christ’s resident Temple of Holiness! If you live with a faithful heart, you live your life of faith apart from sin and your old sin nature! It’s clear, at least in the Word! “If YOU are Christ’s child of faith you’ve offered your life to be dead from and in sin so the Victorious Christ will have an earthly home to be Himself! And, IF SO, “Go and sin no more!”
Again, John, in 1 John 3:7-10, in a convicting declaration states: “Little children (which can include 80-year-olds who’ve just believed!), let no one deceive you. He who practices (and keeps on practicing!) righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. He who sins is of the devil. For the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. (It’s extremely sad that some choose Satan’s works over God’s grace and mercy, but they do!). Whoever has been born of God (in the spirit-realm) does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.”
And, some just laugh, saying: “Well, I guess I’ll just have to show Jesus!”, as they rebel, deny, AND choose to do as they please rather than as God decrees and declares: “The wages of sin IS death, but the gift of God IS eternal life in and through Christ Jesus only!!”
Sadly, around you flourishes a ‘society of sinners’ under the rule of Satan that see their sin-tendencies as blessings not curses, because of sinful mind and heart, dictated to by Satan, yes, desires to satisfy their ‘flesh-nature’, failing to understand it exposes their true identity of godlessness! Yet, at the same time, “confession booths” are open doors for many to ‘feel’ forgiven as they walk out, but intent on doing the same things over and over! There isn’t a ‘heavy-heart’ of brokenness about how their sin breaks God’s heart, but a ‘confession’ without any desire to be delivered from their bondage!
“Natural, worldly, self-centered, Satan-influenced individuals,” are spiritually bankrupt when it comes to understanding, receiving, reaching out to, or resting in the Word of God – they are part of societal madness, void of spiritual discernment, and blind to the grace, mercy, and love of God demonstrated in and through Calvary’s Cross!
Is it for you a craving, fleshly, God-forsaking heart or are you willing to be another “new creation miracle” out of the overflow of God’s heart and out of the abundance of Christ’s promises and fulfillment in millions and millions of lives?
There is: A new blood-covenant, the promise of a “new name”, the eternal miracle of a “new heart”, a “new door or new gate of entrance into the fullness, the brightness, the glory of God’s presence in you, the hope of glory,” a “new drink of eternal blessing – the wine of Truth, mercy, and love”, a “new spirit, attitude, outlook, and fulfillment”, a “new creation”, a “new man”, a “new and living way”, “all things made new by His eternal creative powers”, a “new vision, a new dream” not figments of one’s sleepy dreams but the formulated plans of God for your destiny as clay in the hands of the Master-Potter!
The prophet, Joel, wrote in Joel 2:28-29, God speaking: “And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.”
Dare I tell you that apart from God’s visions and dreams for every individual soul, mankind lives only with the best or worst of fallen men’s fleshly ambitions apart from eternal intent! It was James Russell Lowell who once said: “The wicked and the weak, by some dark law, have a strange power to shut and rivet down their own horizons round us, to unwing our heaven-inspiring visions.” So absolutely true, but then I came across Peter Marshall’s word in “Mr. Jones, Meet the Master,” when he said: “Give us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for, because unless we stand for something (and I say, FOR SOMEONE EVEN CHRIST!), we shall fall for anything.”
But how many do you know who willfully and intently stand, yes, opposed to God’s heavenly vision unveiled in and through Christ alone? But we have the Word of God in Christ – and it is not an old Aladdin’s lamp with ‘flickering, dying flames”, but eternal Truth “setting the captives free” and appointing them to extend His Kingdom and express His love, and exercise and prove His eternal power in bringing Heaven and the Kingdom of God to earth in the repentant, believing, trusting hearts of His disciples! ARE YOU ONE OF HIS DISCIPLES?
Milton Littlefield and E.M.Wren, in the old “American Hymnal” of 1933, wrote this hymn entitled, “Follow Me, the Masrter Said” – it says: “Follow Me”, the Master said; We will follow Jesus: By His word and Spirit-led, We will follow Jesus. Still for us He lives to plead, At the throne He does intercede, offers help in time of need: We will follow Jesus.
Should the world and sin oppose, We will follow Jesus; He is greater than our foes; We will follow Jesus. On His promise we depend, He will succor and defend, help and keep us to the end: We will follow Jesus.
Though the way may dark appear, We will follow Jesus; He will make our pathway clear; We will follow Jesus. In our daily round of care, As we plead with God in prayer, With the cross which we must bear, We will follow Jesus.
Ever keep the end in view; We will follow Jesus: All His promises are true; We will follow Jesus. When this earthly course is run, And the Master says, Well done!” Life eternal we have won: We will follow Jesus.”
Tell me! Who or what has your heart and on what path are you following? Are YOU “following” Jesus, anywhere, everywhere, any time, any place, any battle field He’s already fought and won for His glory, His honor, His praise alone? Dare I tell you, “the way of the Cross leads home”!