Why Christians Should Not Satisfy Their Worldly and Fleshy Desires

This kitten is about 3 months old (human time). Here we see her teething on a stem of a Wild Coco Yam Leaf. She was all engrossed in satisfying herself. I have other photos of her actually biting the stem. While this is all natural and safe for the kitten, it brought to mind some of our human tendencies.

“I would they were even cut off which trouble you. For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Galatians 5:12-14

Believer and unbelievers alike, tend to get engrossed in satisfying our worldly and fleshy needs at times and tend to think that it’s the best thing since ‘sliced bread’. I spoke to a work associate once that asked me, ‘why would a loving God tell us to stop masturbating?’. He also told me that I was excused from that sin because, Christians can just ask for forgiveness. That’s where the verse I quoted above came into play.

Aaah...., You have no idea! by Godserv

My associate had a point about not wanting to be freed from his sin. He was engrossed in it and knew no better. Now, don’t be so fast to judge him. We who are saved, are saved by grace and some of us were where he is and, if it was not for the blood of Jesus and His grace, we would be a mirror image of my associate today. So think clearly and humbly. Question is, does this kind of love for sin even have hope? Yes it does. However we are here to plant seeds from the word of God into lives like this. We are no better than Him, we are saved without our own merit.

Now my friend, what about his indictment on Christians, that we can do what we want, because of the “forgiveness factor”? The verse from Galatians was not written to unbelievers, but to those that do believe. This means we gotta pick some stuff from our eyes. Unfortunately my associate’s argument was not far from the truth – some Christians do believe that they can do whatever they want, because they are ‘FREE’. We become engrossed in our own lustful desires just like the world. And guess what, we take that thought from this same verse and others in our Holy Bible.

Sin is common to all human so we are all included – however the Christian, even though we are freed from sin, must see to it that we are working out our salvation each day – abstaining from our fleshly desires (this does not mean sex only, but all sin). Paul said, “I would that they were even cut off which trouble you’. Christians that sin without giving it a second thought and make excuses, not only hurt (trouble) the body of believers, but also pass on the notion to unbelievers that they are excused because of the “forgiveness factor”. This kind of behavior weakens our witness to the unbelievers. We must start with ourselves before we go on to others.

Clearly, from Paul’s statement, we are called to liberty; but as he said, we must not use the liberty we have in Christ for an occasion to the flesh (an excuse or reason to commit a sin).

Are we engrossing ourselves in fleshly desires (filth) and sometimes feel like, “Aaah… You have no idea!” My friend, that’s an expression of engrossment we should not have for the world – be very careful, we must answer to God for all our works at the end of time.

What manner of a person should we be… knowing that Jesus will soon return?.

God has way better things for us – we don’t need to be digging back into that which we were uplifted from. “Aaah… We have no idea!”