Shedding the Flesh

One of the hardest things to do in life is to admit you’re wrong and ask for help. It’s kind of embarrassing, isn’t it? To look someone in the face and say, “I can’t do this alone. Can you help me?” Admitting that has never come easy to me. Yet it’s in the space between our incapabilities and God’s mercy that we find our weakness to be met with lasting hope. 

The one thing you and I will be asking for help with for the rest of our lives is ourselves. There will never be a point in time in which we don't need help from God. That isn’t to say we aren’t grateful for how God has already moved in our lives or aren’t finding contentment in Him, it’s simply realizing that the grace of God in our lives is always actively working in us and we have a responsibility to do everything we can to walk in step with God’s purposes for us. 

We must actively be dying to the selfishness in our hearts, the lack of grace we show others, the lack of gratefulness we have towards God’s blessings, or whatever it may specifically be for you. You must continually put the sin in your life to death and humbly ask for God’s help with every step along the way. Because without God, there’s nothing we can do that has any resemblance to Him and His goodness.

May these words today be a nourishment to your soul and provide a path forward for how you can continually learn to shed your fleshly desires in exchange for God and His infinite beauty.

A HEART OF STONE

When we look at Jesus and the way he lived His life, we see a clear distinction between himself and the religious rulers of the day. The odd thing is that Jesus and the religious rulers had the exact same scriptures that they read and lived by. They both had the same Hebrew bible written by the patriarchs of olden days, yet the way they enacted their faith stood in stark contrast. 

But why? Shouldn’t these words have the same effect if they’re both reading the same book? The difference between Jesus and the religious rulers is that one of them had the Holy Spirit guiding them, and the others didn’t. One believed what God had said to be true about caring for the people around them, and the others merely wanted to maintain religious appearances without its effects ever reaching their heart. One wanted to expand and cultivate the kingdom of God around them and the others wanted to build their own empire.

While it’s easy for me to talk about the Pharisees and easily look at the ways in which they fell short, I hate to acknowledge my own cold heartedness. I hate acknowledging how I can become angered when someone disagrees with me, or how I become silent to God if I feel slighted because of the circumstances in my life, or even how I claim to be serving Him when I speak and engage with others when all I’m really doing is seeing How I can best sway a room into thinking higher of me. Acknowledging that hurts, but it will forever be an issue for me unless the Spirit of God does the work that only He can do, which is to renew me and give me a pure heart. 

God hasn’t and doesn’t do this just for me, He can do this for you too. The Spirit of God works within every believer. Convicting us, enlightening our eyes to behold the goodness of God, and allowing us to see where we’ve fallen short and need God’s help. Ask and see what God will do with your prayers. You may be surprised with hope, a plan, and a path that only God could have made. And if you hear nothing but silence, even better. You’ve begun the practice of listening to God earnestly and asking for His help even when it feels like he’s been silent. Continue to expect God to move in your life, and if the silence remains, know that it’s not forever and that God is still good not just in the easy parts of life, but in the difficult. Just wait and see; before you will await a treasure that only God can reveal.

A HEART OF FLESH

To have a heart of flesh is to have a heart transformed by the love of God. Meaning, His grace has saved you, His Spirit has led you, and the life you now live is in service to God out of a heart that longs to love others.

If what I just described sounds more like a fantasy than a reality, don’t fret, there’s hope for you too. Slowly over time, the kind of life you live and the desires of your heart will start to change the more you begin to view God and His beauty. Let me put what it means to have a heart of flesh into reality. 

It was deep into the night shortly after a hectic spring semester of college had just ended. Feelings of anxiety and stress were fairly common, but for whatever reason, it felt like the walls were surrounding me and like I had no place to run. But I remembered I had a friend who had told me to call them if I ever needed anything, so I called her.

Our calls were fairly frequent so this wasn’t particularly out of the ordinary. But within the first five seconds of answering, she could tell by the look on my face that my soul was troubled. So we talked about it. And to this day what followed after remains one of my favorite memories. 

She shared a story, read scripture, prayed over me, and listened. Nothing particularly special, not even something that hadn’t been done before by some other friends, yet in this moment there was a felt presence that she was contending with God on my behalf and that my well being was truly cared for. To this day she still remains a friend that I still hold near.

But just as easily as this night was something I’d never forget, this could’ve gone wayward. She could’ve just told me to get over it, pray by myself, half heartedly listened, but because the love of God had marked her heart, this was the kind of response that had become the norm for her.

This isn’t just true for her, this can be true for you. When your family, friend, or loved one comes to you, you can be the person that can change their life by just having one conversation that will mark their life. By sharing a meal, giving encouraging words, or just being there for someone. Because my hunch is that you probably have enough information that could last you a lifetime. You don’t need more information or new ways of hearing the same things, you simply need to live out the realities you already know to be true. And day by day, glory by glory, the heart of flesh God promises will be a part of who you are by His spirit continuously in your life for all of your days.

PRAYER

God, would you be with me? On my best days I can serve others around me well and know that it's all for your glory and just be happy. But on some and maybe even most days, I find doing service to others and caring for them more of a chore than an opportunity. But I’ve seen what it means for you to move in the lives of your people. For the hostile to become welcoming, the bitter to become joyful, and the angry to become happy. So would you do that for me? Would you shed the sin in my life day by day so that I could not just become a better version of me, but so that I could gain more of you. So God I ask one more time, be with me not because of what I contain or possess, but because of your faithfulness to your people and the promises you make, to change me to become more like you for all of my days. It’s by the power of your Spirit that I pray, Amen.