THE FLESH

Greetings. We are going to study scriptures with the word flesh found in them as our focus and ask the Holy Ghost to reveal to us God’s wisdom concerning this word. The word flesh is found almost four hundred times in the Bible. I sometime will read every scripture about a particular word I am studying. After countless hours of studying my mind is becoming a human Bible Concordance. Matthew 22:29Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. The power comes later after we become very familiar with just knowing the scriptures. This could take hours and when our priority is right this comes out of a love for the truth. Very few people refuse to confess to knowing the letter of the Law; this is what our fleshly thinking can only understand. 2 Corinthians 3:6who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. I often point out that having a general knowledge of the Bible really helps the Holy Ghost to bring the correct scriptures into remembrance in time of need. John 14:26But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. When I need a scripture to reveal another scripture, the Holy Ghost brings to remembrance that scripture needed. This is how I do not make the interpretation my flesh or sin. As I write these letters, I start out with a small topic or word I want to examine and allow the Holy Ghost to correct or teach as I study. Millions of so call-Christians never even read the Bible, yet Hollywood writers do and everything from video game producers to songwriters. Of course, they spiritually have no spiritual discernment of what they are reading. Our flesh is our mortal way of seeing God’s immortal word, and our flesh cannot see or profit in the things of God. Called by themselves Preachers, use the word Profit as it relates to physical monies, it does not! We are profiting Spiritually when God is revealing the Spiritual meaning of His word. John 6:63It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. The good news is we all see the Bible in our fleshly earthly wisdom at first: I did it for twenty-five years. 1 Corinthians 15:46Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. Now the bad news is when we cannot confess, we only saw God’s words in our own fleshly wisdom: we die in our sins. 1 John 4:2Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:1 John 4:3and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. God must reveal to all of us at first, we only saw God in our flesh or man’s way of seeing the Bible. This comes as a great mental rebuke or chastening to people after going to Churches for years. Job 5:17Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty. We should be happy when God is showing us the error of our ways or fleshly thinking concerning His ways. In years of going to these so-called Churches, I never met anybody who was happy because God had revealed something Spiritual from His words. A greater rebuke to us is that God’s sees us as having the spirit of antichrist. This Antichrist has nothing to do with any political leader, as Hollywood movies might have led us to believe. Only that man refuses to confess that he sees the Bible in his fleshly wisdom. Our own fleshly, earthly wisdom cannot believe a greater wisdom exists that we cannot see with our mortal sight. We become anti-Christs in our thinking which wars against anything Spiritual. Job 10:4   Hast thou eyes of flesh? or seest thou as man seeth? The Prophet Job asks this question, and we as mortal men answer would be, we see everything under the sun. Our answer under the sun would be right, because we cannot spiritually see anything above the sun or God’s wisdom. Spiritually our flesh seeing is unclean in the eyes of God as if we were spiritual lepers. Leviticus 14 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 2 This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing.Until God’s words start to Spiritually cleanse us, we are counted as an unclean thing. Isaiah 64:6But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. Our unrighteousness is our iniquities, and like a leaf no longer connected to a living tree should be gathered up to be burned. Our wind or doctrine has tossed us spiritually to and fro. Ephesians 4:14that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine.

 

PART 2 THE FLESH​       ​Michael Rudolph Hodges 6/20/2023