The Cloak of Death

Early each morning, I sit on the couch in my living room, one lamp lit on the table beside me casting shadows all over the room, bible in my lap. Sunlight hasn’t yet peered into the apartment and it’s almost eerie how many shadows can hide corners and crevices from the naked eye. But as the sun rises to full height, the apartment fills with light, and what was dim before becomes visible.

I hope that is symbolic of the light Jesus is shedding in our hearts as we peer deeper into the workings of the flesh. I am not yet ready to shed light on how Christ truly sets us free, because I feel we need to unwrap the other side of fleshly living.

I heard an enlightening message recently that helped me understand what happens next when my flesh puts on self-righteousness. Let’s pick up on the picture from the last post.

My flesh has had me trying so hard to please God that I get sick of it. Every day seams worse than the last one. “Oh, just give up,” the flesh finally says one day. “You can’t be that good.” Breathless, it points at Jesus. “He says you should be like Him, and honestly, I think that’s impossible. Maybe He just meant you should have the similar values to Him, but not act like Him.”

I nod, feeling as if it is all too true. Everything I do to please Him falls back in failure to measure up to His goodness. Surely He didn’t call me to be like Him, I think. It’s too hard.

“Maybe God really didn’t mean we should be holy as He is holy.” 

He continues, “He knows that’s too high a standard. You deserve a break! All those high standards have kept you from having fun! The bible talks about God laughing and God loving His people. Surely He didn’t intend for you to be so stiff all the time. You care too much about doing things right.” The flesh pauses, looking me over. It’s true, I think. I haven’t felt God’s love in a long time.

The flesh continues . “Look, you’ve missed out on all the movies your friends talk about. You wear clothes that aren’t that stylish. You listen to the most boring music in the world. You have tried to bite your tongue, but –look, we both know that that has not fixed your anger problem or all the bitterness you feel towards those people who hurt you.”

I frown. All of that seems so good, but what good is it doing me?

“You’ve done all this in the name of pleasing God,” the flesh speaks again, "But you know none of that works. You should loosen up and just do what makes you feel happy. You know God wants you to be happy.”

I don't take into account who it is that is talking to me. The thoughts swirl around in my head and sweep me up in a current of feelings. Just how true it feels!

“Let me show you how to be happy.” The flesh points out the Christians I had looked down upon for so long. They are smiling and living a life of ease. I notice how easy it is for them to do the things I had stayed away from without feeling even a hint of guilt. They have all the heart could wish for.

“But…” I find myself thinking out loud, “What about Jesus?”

The flesh hands me my bible. “He wants you to be happy. As long as you read this from time to time, you should be fine. You know that every Christian spends their life like this. You deserve to be happy just like them. Besides, the bible says to stay in the liberty that Christ has given you and don’t be tangled up in bondage to the law. You don’t have to have such high standards! You can be free.”

Finally persuaded, I put my high standards down and feel freedom sweep over me. I conclude that the grace of God has lifted me out of a bondage I didn’t know I had. I step off the rock of the law into the sands of worldly and fleshly living, not realizing it is sinking sand.

Each day, I have my “quiet time” with Jesus and then leave Him wherever we meet to pursue those things I love.

I don’t realize it, but I’m falling in love with the World. I eagerly look at Pinterest to see what others are doing and copy the latest trends. I check Instagram and Facebook to see how my friends are living and post the best of my life on there too. I change my wardrobe so I can better blend with the people I surround myself with. I listen to the music they listen to, watch the things they watch, and do the things they do.

People confront me about my change of standards, but I brush it off, knowing they can’t be living up to their standards either. A still small voice whispers, “Be holy, as I am holy,” but I ignore it, knowing it’s impossible.

I have unknowingly constructed an idol in my heart. It’s an idol of who I think God is.

It’s an idol of a god who loves me, but never disciplines me. A god who gives grace in abundance and doesn’t expect me to act holy. He is a god who has come down to my level without any desire to grow me or challenge me. It is a god who meets my needs, but doesn’t expect me to do anything for Him. It is a god who serves my flesh, gives it whatever it wants and seeks to make me feel happy. A god that only keeps me from sinning in big ways, but doesn’t care if I fail in small ways. I have come to love this god who tolerates sin so much that the idea of a God who is so holy that no sin, no matter how small, can survive in His presence offends me and makes me angry.

Really what I have come to love and worship is my flesh.

I have been duped into thinking this will make me happy, but I don’t realize that the pleasures of the flesh and sin are only for a season and is really a path of death and decay. It is quicksand, and I’m sinking fast.

Once again, life loses its pleasure, so I pursue more pleasure, moving my standards lower and lower. Everything I try gives me just enough pleasure that I do it again only to find I have to do more and go further in order to be satisfied.

One day, perhaps years later, I wake up and realize I’m doing things I never dreamed I would do. I’m failing in ways I never thought possible. I’m doing things I hate in order to satisfy this intense addiction to happiness, yet satisfaction is always beyond my reach, and instead I find myself embracing death itself.

This death I’m referring to is the absence of real spiritual life. A life of abundance, of supernatural power, of pleasing God every moment and knowing you are doing so. 

It’s a life of taking pleasure in God –a holy God who hates sin, a merciful God who has mercy on sinners, a loving God who pursues the heart of His children while chastening them for sin, a just God who takes vengeance on evil, a powerful God, whose strength is limitless for the weak, a truthful God who doesn’t tolerate lies, a gentle God who works in our lives to radically change us without harming our spiritual life. A joyful God, who wants us to know joy in the middle of the worst of circumstances. A peaceful God who gives us rest. A supernatural God who wants us to have supernatural life.

I could go on and on and on about the God we replace when we live in the flesh…. The God we miss out on knowing and experiencing. The God who is veiled by the death and decay that we embrace when we pursue pleasure.

“So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God,” says Paul in Romans 8:8. The seemingly harmless lie that I can live for my flesh and still please God is debunked in this one verse alone.

Paul warns about this life I just described in Galatians 5:13: “For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use your liberty as an opportunity for the flesh…” Peter also spoke about it in 1 Peter 2:16 “…not using your liberty as a cloak for vice…” (Vice: wickedness).

In other words, God has given us liberty and freedom, but it’s not the freedom I was believed to have at the beginning of the story above. It is a much better freedom. It is the freedom to have true life. To enjoy God as He is, and not as I want Him to be.

If I am living according to the flesh, I cannot enjoy God as He is, because God’s holiness will always clash with my flesh. Something will always die as a result. If I choose the flesh, my relationship with God dies. If I choose God as He is, my flesh dies and the idol of who I want God to be is torn down.

“And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Galatians 5:24) In other words, when I live in surrender to Christ, living as His belonging and not mine, the passions and desires of the flesh die.

What death will you choose? The death of your flesh and its false representation of God, or the death of your intimate relationship with God?

Perhaps now you are thinking, “wait. Trying to please Jesus in my strength is fleshly, having high standards is fleshly, and living for pleasure and sin is fleshly…. So, what am I supposed to do?”

There is now only one alternative, and that is living in complete dependence on the Spirit of God. The secret is simple, yet so profound that many miss it. As Paul put it in Colossians 1:26: “…Christ in you, the hope of glory.” 

I plan to expound more in a future post, but for now, think about this question. If God put Christ, who is fully alive and fully capable in you, what part should your flesh play in the Christian life? Does your flesh need to play any part at all?

…More to come. (: