CHAPTER NINETEEN
“CARE OF THE CARNAL MIND
OR CARE OF THE SPIRITUAL SOUL?”
Is a ‘carnal mind’ the merely human effort of one’s ‘best’ at discerning for himself/herself what one is looking for in life because there is in ‘fallen flesh’ no desire to know what Holy God is up to concerning one’s earthly purpose? I don’t think there is any doubt about that!
Many of the lives birthed in our modern world are strictly ‘fleshly’ in orientation without any consideration of God’s eternal purpose of men willfully choosing their lives as “vessels” of His divine Presence and extensions through them to amazingly touch the world around them with His mercy, grace, and love! They’re “busy” about the “care of the carnal mind” and all it supposes or proposes or imposes!
If there are great, spiritual events in one’s ‘carnal mind’, “it’s all ‘circumstantial’, not providential”, they think! And if anything “great” occurs, it’s from the ‘heart-spring’ of personal initiative not Holy intent! If “dark doors” are before them, carnal minded men ‘might’ say, “Well, that must come from lower powers out of hell”, never sensing ‘godlessness’ is fertile ground for demonic activity without God’s protection against the powers of darkness because they have no intent of being dependent upon Holy God for anything in their fleshly nature since they’re perfectly capable of taking care of themselves!
Natural-minded men are blinded concerning “the lusts of the flesh, the lies of Satan, or the blinded deceits of a world population”! How many ‘natural men’ do you know who discern Holy God as the Author, Creator, and Celebrator of His world, its purpose ordained in Him, and His power and love seeing it come to full fruition in His timing? “God’s on His throne, and all is right in His world?” How many do you know who discern THAT for themselves?
How much of the comprehension of, at least, the care of the carnal mind relates to ‘fleshly comfort’, ‘earthly success’, or a ‘worldly dream or ambition’, imprinted by only ‘self-relevance’ independent of Holy God? Do you even think the masses of earthly-minded men controlled by ‘self-intent’ even care about what Holy God thinks? Personal pride “in my potential” is the ‘self-strutting peacock’ more proud of his ‘feathers’ than his Creator!
Oh, but then, there are the ‘religiously proud’ through the ages, like William Warburton, Bishop of Glouchester, that Charles Churchill wrote about in his article entitled “Independence”: “He was so proud that should he meet the Twelve Apostles in the street he’d turn his nose up at them all and shove his Savior from the wall.” I’d call that “The pride that captured Satan and shamed the ‘fallen angels’!
The cultivation of the mind void of the desire and intent of Holy God is like an automobile without an engine, or birds without wings, or, yes, human populations void of the awareness that the Creator-God came, birthed by the Virgin Mary, sacrificed His own Life on the Cross in “Blood Redemption”, but they continue ignoring Biblical History, just blindly trying to find their way without any consideration why Holy God sent His Son or why, under the Sovereign Administration of Holy God, “Why am I here?”!!
Is it possible that “the care of the carnal mind” rules over many because its finiteness has its own self-imposed limits, and one in that phase of existence only has no interest in God’s boundless, limitless, exceedingly great and unending infinite mercy and grace, especially if it costs them their independence, “if your God expects ME to obey Him”? And, is it possible, that to the extreme, there are those human beings, to the extreme point of pain, troubles, heartaches, despair, troubles, unhappiness, loneliness in the ‘inner man’, strongly twisted together to the point they come to the place to say to themselves, “Not even God cares about me”?
“Care of the carnal mind”? Could such devotion to ‘flesh’, to the ‘temporary’, to the ‘world scene’, to ‘human achievement’ without any need or even a ‘thought’ about God, or a ‘thought’ about the Savior, or a ‘thought’ about ETERNITY and one’s role in it, become so dominate one ends up ‘poverty stricken’ rather than “rich” in the Savior’s love? It’s not an accountant’s ‘ledger’ that will reveal what has the human heart, mind, and soul, because the “kingdom of God’ is not based on men’s bank accounts, investments, stock dividends, royalties, but the eternal reality of ONENESS with the Savior, Master, and True Lord of life that blesses and blesses and blesses, and keeps on blessing ! The richest man in the whole world, past, present, and future, is not the man with huge stocks, bonds, or bank accounts, but the man rich in redemptive faith, the recipient of a transformed life and new heart, and the man entrusted with Heaven’s Good News”, the Gospel, gain, and grip of King Jesus on his heart and mind, and HE’S NOT ASHAMED OF IT!
Will Carleton, in “The Ancient Miner’s Story”, wrote: “But I have learned a thing or two; I know as sure as fate, When we lock up our lives for wealth, the gold key comes too late.” One wonders if the ‘ancient miner’ ever knew or had any inkling at all about “true wealth” that only comes, lastingly, in one’s oneness in Christ alone as Lord, Savior, and the Master of, yes, Eternal Life!
Paul wrote challenging, enlightening words in 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:5, so ‘eternal-life-instructing’! He said: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
“Temporary”? Does that mean not permanent to you or those around you? Does temporary mean I don’t have to be serious about my ‘present’, though my ‘present’ may be the key to what Door or door I walk through as ‘eternity’ calls my name? Some have never even considered that the ‘temporary’ IS only a stepping stone toward the ‘eternal’, blessed or unblessed, good or bad, fleshly or spiritual, Satanic or Master-Jesus oriented – it seldom enters some minds, though they see themselves as a very ‘profound person’. “I operate on ‘common sense’, not like those Christians who talk about ‘spiritual sensitivity’ to the things of God and obedience to what He reveals – not me!”
“Temporary”? “The sower sows the word.” That’s Christ Jesus speaking in Mark 4:13-20, and He’s explaining “cares of the carnal minds” AND “the care of the Spiritually-Re-born Soul in oneness with Christ”! Jesus said: “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word. And these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown. When they hear Satan COMES IMMEDIATELY and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts.
These likewise are the ones sown on stony ground who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with gladness; and they have NO ROOT IN THEMSELVES, and so endure only for a time. Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises for the word’s sake, immediately they stumble.
Now these are the ones sown among thorns; they are the ones who hear the word, and the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. BUT these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit; some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.”
Is the word of God being sown by the wayside of the earthly population on any and every continent of our world? It’s happening! But is it received by every citizen of all nations? Of course not! “Few there be who find it,” Jesus said, but, yes, there are those who hear, receive, repent, and obey, yielding themselves to the Lordship of Christ!
And, receiving Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior of some lives in some countries has cost them their lives – having traveled to India and other countries in Asia, I knew those who became ‘martyrs for the faith’! But, with Paul, (Acts 20:21), they were willing “to testify…repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ”, even if persecuted or killed!
There was a particular time when in Madras, India, I was preaching on the streets before my conference there started, when two young men confronted me, threatening me that if I came back tomorrow, they would come and kill me. I told them of the time and place where I would be preaching the next day. When the time came, our church musicians were singing, but my translator, Pastor Anand, came and said, “If you’re going to preach, you better do it now, because there are ten to twelve men close by headed this way, each one carrying a machete. I preached, prayed, extended an invitation to trust Christ, and when I finished my prayer, I saw the two ‘mob leaders’ on their knees before me. They prayed to receive Christ, and were baptized by Pastor Anand and became a part of his local church!
Yes, there are those who hear the word, accept it, repent, are baptized, and begin to bear the fruit of the Indwelling Christ! And there MUST BE “the care of spiritual souls”! In Matthew 18:2-5 Jesus said: Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me.”
And, in the care of spiritual souls, I’m sure there are those who endorse ‘sinning’ as THE option every believer has, even if Christ Jesus Himself said: “Go and sin no more”! What does Matthew 18:6 tell us, again, Jesus speaking? “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea!”
The evidence that a man or woman, boy or girl, has been delivered FROM SIN is their sorrowful heart over what their sin nature cost Christ on the cruel Cross! And they have no desire to shame the “Blood Atonement” but to live only the overcoming life in and through Christ’s Resurrected Presence within them – they die daily to themselves and the old sin nature that Christ may be honored through them! In 1 John 1:7 the beloved John wrote: “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ God’s Son cleanses us from all sin.”
In his book “My Utmost For His Highest,” Oswald chambers wrote: “If I walk in the light as God is in the light, not in the light of my conscience, but in the light of God – if I walk there, with nothing folded up, then there comes the amazing revelation, the blood of Jesus cleanses me from all sin so that God Almighty can see nothing to censure in me. In my consciousness it works with a keen poignant knowledge of what sin is. The love of God at work in me makes me hate with the hatred of the Holy Ghost all that is not in keeping with God’s holiness. To walk in the light means that everything that is of the darkness drives me closer into the center of the light.”
Do you believe Jesus when He said, “And, lo, I am with you always…”, and because of His promise one can sin if he/she chooses? Walking with Him in one’s spiritual pilgrimage day by day, feeding daily on His Word, relying upon the Holy Spirit to guide us only in the way that honors Christ, does not open a door of ‘fleshly choices’ to do as I please, even sinning if I can’t help it. Where does that come from? What “strange gospel” is it that grants “do as you please if you since a desire to sin – Jesus understands.” No! He doesn’t understand ‘flesh’ ever choosing consenting to sin if He’s Captain of one’s Ship of Faith and Obedience! He’s given you the Holy Spirit to “guide you into all truth”, not to concur with your desire to do as you please!
In “The Pastor’s Guide to Effective Ministry”, (Edited by William H. Willimon, Beacon Hill Press, 2002), there’s a powerful word from the Puritan Thomas Watson. He said: “The first fruit of love is the musing of the mind upon God. He who is in love, his thoughts are ever upon the object. He who loves God is ravished and transported with the contemplation of God. “When I awake, I am still with Thee” (Psalm 139:18). The thoughts are as travelers in the mind. David’s thoughts kept heaven-road. “I am still with Thee.” God is the treasure, and where the treasure is, there is the heart. By this way we may test our love of God. What are our thoughts most upon? Can we say we are ravished with delight when we think upon God? Have our thoughts got wings? Are they fled aloft? Do we contemplate Christ and glory?…A sinner crowds God out of his thoughts. He never thinks of God, unless with horror, as the prisoner (guilty prisoner) thinks of the judge.”
Revelation 5 speaks of “The Worthy Lamb of God”, with Revelation 5:12 and Verse 13 saying: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing” with Verse 13 following: “Blessing and honor and glory and power Be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!”
Would YOU dare say that’s your hymn of praise to the Reigning Christ in your life because your “Life-Walk” IS testimony He has inspired to “the caring of your redeemed soul” honoring Him daily?
Rev.E.A.Hoffman and Rev.J.H.Stockton, in the “American Hymnal” of the early 1930’s wrote a hymn entitled “Glory To His Name.” It says: “Down at the cross where my Savior died, Down where for cleansing from sin I cried, There to my heart was the blood applied; Glory to His Name.
I am so wondrously saved from sin, Jesus so sweetly abides within, There at the cross where He took me in; Glory to His name.
Oh, precious fountain that saves from sin, I am so glad I have entered in; There Jesus saves me and keeps me clean; Glory to His name.
Come to this fountain so rich and sweet; Cast your poor soul at the Savior’s feet; Plunge in today, and be made complete; Glory to His name.
Glory to His name, Glory to His name; There to my heart was the blood applied; Glory to His name.”
Do YOU sing the “Glory Song” to Jesus because He applied His shed Calvary blood to redeem you from your bondage in sin? It’s time – there is no promise of ‘tomorrow’! Romans 15:13 declares: “NOW may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” ARE YOU A SPIRIT-FILLED DISCIPLE ABOUNDING IN ETERNAL HOPE IN JESUS?