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             Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:5-8)

 

            This passage reminds me of I Corinthians 13:1-4 and the passage in which Jesus warns people that they may say tell Him all about how much good they did, and He will say “Away from me. I never knew you.” It also reminds me of horror movies. Even if you haven’t seen them  you’ve heard enough about them to know – the vampire or zombie are “undead,” meaning that they have the appearance of life without actually being alive. It doesn’t seem kind to say it but there are a lot of people out there who are vampires and zombies. Some of them claim to be Christians. Some of them may be “nice people” or even perform great deeds. That’s not what makes them alive.

            This passage tells us that the mind governed by the flesh is death. In a physical sense, if there is no brain or heart activity, we say the person is dead. There’s no judgment of the person involved in the statement. In the act of grieving, someone may become angry with the dead person for being dead, but the person in question doesn’t have a choice. If they’re dead, they’re dead (Yes, excepting resurrections…) The same is true when there is no spiritual activity. When the person does not respond to the Spirit, he/she is dead. Their body may dance, sing, or even perform miracles, but if they haven’t been made alive by the Spirit, they’re dead. You may as well scream at them for having a collarbone or a stomach. They can’t do it themselves no matter how hard they try.

            The flip side of this is the folks who are alive. It’s not because they’re better. They’re simply alive and it won’t help if they kill themselves because being dead doesn’t make things better. They didn’t make themselves alive. But this is where the passage from Deuteronomy I mentioned the other day comes in. We tend to like to think that when someone becomes a Christian, they are instantaneously perfect and never do anything wrong for the rest of their physical lives. So when we’re less than perfect, we think ourselves showing symptoms of deadness, and other people are likely to agree. But we (and they) need to be careful, because just as the dead can seem alive, so the alive can seem dead. The goal is to become more and more alive. Just as when we have physical symptoms, we go to a physical doctor, so when we have spiritual symptoms, we should go to the Great Physician. 

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