Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Flesh profits nothing

Pam Padgett ... teacher

John 6: 63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

word:

-- a distinct meaningful element of speech or writing

-- a message

-- an account of the truth

Yesterday I sent an email and thoughts came telling me that it was not good.  When I turned to God and asked Him if the message was of Him, I was reminded of two very concrete things … that I had prayed before starting to write the email, asking God to help me share only what was His will, and how a part of the email was something I had never even thought of before, but it came forth while writing the email and I believe it was authored by the Holy Spirit.  A short time later, someone also reported that the message in that email shined some light on an issue. 

It stood out to me that the word from God is real.  When we turn to Him, He is able to answer us with things we can grasp.  There is something distinct, a message, something that shows truth about the matter.  We can safely walk in the way we’re led by what God gives us.  In this case, I was able to cast down this thought, as we’re told in II Corinthians 10:5, and go in the way of the things God had shown to me, believing that the message in the email was of God. 

5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;    II Corin. 10
But we need to depend on God to show us the truth about the thought, rather than trying to work it out in our own minds.   Last night while talking with Joan I said something, and then was immediately reminded of how similar this sounded to something someone else had said and the problems that resulted.  Rather than turning to God, I reasoned with my mind that I had done the same thing, and apologized … but there was no problem because I had not been led by a destructive spirit in what I said.  It looked similar to the other situation, but wasn’t. 

Only by turning to God, and allowing Him to sort these things out, can we know truth in the matter and know how to move forward.