CURBING THE FLESH
Dear friends,
When it comes to controlling one’s flesh, many people want a quick fix. They sometimes want a demon cast out of them. I heard of one 28 year old lady who said that a spirit of gluttony had been cast out of her but she had gained 58 pounds since then. Someone asked her? Did they say anything to you about developing good eating habits? She said, “No, they said that spirit was gone and now I can eat anything I want.”
But if you go back to the Bible, it tells you what to do about your overeating.
Prov. 23:3 NKJV When you sit down to eat with a ruler,Consider carefully what is before you; 2 And put a knife to your throat If you are a man given to appetite. 3 Do not desire his delicacies,For they are deceptive food.
Notice this Scripture says you are the one to do something about the overeating and the choosing of the foods to eat. It’s too easy to blame fleshly habits on the devil (not that I care about him) but the truth is that it will cost you a price to curb your own appetite and deny your own flesh.
As we mentioned last week, in the matter of immorality, though the enemy may influence you to think and act a certain way, it is still up to you to control your flesh. We read that Scripture that tells us to: “flee” fornication. Run from it.
This calls for an action on your part. It calls for prior planning that you will not allow yourself to be naïve and gullible enough to allow yourself to be swept into an unclean act. What practical steps can you take to keep yourself clean?
Read the entire chapter of Proverbs 7. You will come across this portion of Scripture:
Prov. 7:9For at the window of my house I looked through my lattice, 7 And saw among the simple,I perceived among the youths,A young man devoid of understanding, 8 Passing along the street near her corner;And he took the path to her house 9 In the twilight, in the evening,In the black and dark night.NKJV
The “simple” in Proverbs usually refers to a stupid naïve untaught person. In this case as it happens often, he’s a youth without much understanding. What wrong choices did he make? He was on the wrong street after dark! In other words, he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Brethren, this is the biggest key to avoiding fornication. Don’t be at the wrong place with the wrong person!
Two young people in a Bible School in America were inside a parked car hugging, kissing and carrying on. The instructor saw them and knocked on the window. He asked them to come to his office. So they came. He asked them why they were carrying on like that. They said they loved each other and were going to get married. He told them thatwas the same as not being married. He asked if they had sought God about it. He told them: “When you act like that, your flesh is speaking too loud for you to hear God’s direction.” They were upset with the teacher and they left. Several months later, the girl came to see the teacher. She apologized for not listening to him that day. She said later she sought God and He began to reveal that this was the wrong guy for her to marry. She explained the changes she had noticed in him. She was so grateful she didn’t allow herself to be swept away by so called “love” which was nothing but uncontrolled fleshly lust.
The Bible says people who don’t know God live like that; in uncleanness and uncontrolled flesh. But you and I must learn to live in the way that pleases God for His will is our Sanctification and holiness.
1 Thess. 4:3-5,7For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5 not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; 7 For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness.NKJV
