Strengthen all weary hands,
steady all trembling knees
and say to all faint hearts,
Courage! Do not be afraid.
‘Look, your God is coming,
vengeance is coming,
the retribution of God;
he is coming to save you.’
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
the ears of the deaf unsealed,
then the lame shall leap up like a deer
and the tongues of dumb sing for joy;
for water gushes in the desert,
streams in the wasteland,
the scorched earth becomes a lake,
the parched land brings springs of water.
The lairs where he jackals used to live
become thickets of reed and papyrus….
– a picture of God’s judgement and also salvation.
From the Bible, in the book Isaiah, chapter 35:3-7 .
For some in the Bible, after the judgment, salvation
follows
Tag: God
The flesh: summary
So, how can I sum up this thing called the flesh?
This way: Any sin committed (read: disobedience of God’s command) starts with a desire in the flesh (the flesh is like the insides of a gutted organism, darkened, and covered in iniquity–iniquitous desires, some latent, some buried, some alive, are those that cause one to sin a particular way and can come down through family) At this point, one can subdue the desire, by calling on Jesus for help–the advocate for people in need who is willing to help to those that call. Having his Spirit with us can help us then.
However, desires of the flesh may grow inside the flesh and as one gets along with the walk of life, certain actions, behaviors and thoughts can come from the desires of the flesh, until they give birth to a sin.
What has one done? Although one sins, God has given Jesus as an advocate for those who have believed in him. The sin can be forgiven, forgotten, and one can get on with Jesus in their lives, an ever present help in times of need. The ability to be saved from the flesh and the sin comes from the Lord Jesus’s salvation–when we put out faith and trust in him.
The desires of the flesh can deceive the host, the person in which lives the flesh. The flesh can go unnoticed. But God is good, as God can illuminate one’s condition, then seek God’s help for this condition inside everyone.
Why is there the flesh?
In my previous post I wrote about the flesh, I explained that the flesh is the vessel in which ‘lives’ that thing called sin. I likened sin to a worm in the flesh, where that worm can climatize if we let it. After I wrote that, I was thinking about the origins of the flesh. Here is what I think.
Continue reading “Why is there the flesh?”
The flesh
Have you heard about the flesh? Or the sins of the flesh? It’s mentioned in the Bible and some churches still talk about it. Understanding what the flesh is came clear to me when I reviewed my review of Amadeus. I then realized that what was happening in Amadeus was a reflection of walking in the flesh or going down the pathway of the flesh. I saw that once one is walking in the flesh, it’s possible to stumble and fall into a sin (sin is a violation of God’s law).
In Amadeus, Salieri plotted and schemed murderously Mozart’s downfall. He was walking in the flesh and it gave birth to sin. When I thought about this some more, I saw in my mind’s eye, and this is just my personal impression, that the flesh was like a horrible looking organism. It looked like the darkened insides of a fleshly organism that had it guts taken out. Inside, was a squiggling worm. The image I saw was horrible. That worm was sin.
We can all walk in the flesh that leads to a sin. But if we decide we want to follow Jesus, we will keep on asking him to help overcome the desires of the flesh.
Jesus has overcome sin. What better one as a helper. In fact there is no one else who can help us overcome sins. In Amadeus, Salieri rejected Jesus. But Jesus was who he needed, to help him.
Life
The following is a translation of an early Bible passage. The passage was originally written about 700 years before Christ and the translation I am using is in the Jerusalem Bible. Was the passage referring to how Jesus healed people at his coming?
In a short time, a very short time,
shall not Lebanon become fertile land
and fertile land turn into forest?
The deaf, that day,
will hear the words of a book
and, after shadow and darkness,
the eyes of the blind will see.
But the lowly will rejoice in Yahweh even more
and the poorest exult in the Holy One of Israel.
(The Book of Isaiah chapter 29, verses 17-19; Jerusalem Bible)
