Pam Padgett ... teacher
When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he dealt with a man among the church
who was committing fornication with his father's wife ...
1 Corinthians 5:1 It is reported commonly that there is
fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named
among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife. 2 And ye are
puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this
deed might be taken away from among you. 3 For I verily, as absent in
body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were
present, concerning him that hath so done this deed, 4 In the name of
our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit,
with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, 5 To deliver such an one unto
Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
As I
read this it stood out to me how much more important our spiritual well
being
is than our flesh. Nothing of this world, nothing that the flesh
desires, is more important than keeping ourselves by the Holy Spirit in
the ways of God, holy and pure before Him.
Jesus told us that the spirit quickens (gives life) but the flesh profits nothing ...
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the
words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. (John 6:63)
Paul spoke of seeking not things of this world, but an incorruptible
crown, a prize that will last for all eternity. In doing so he kept his
flesh in subjection, that he not be a castaway ....
1 Corinthians 9:24 Know ye not that they which run in a race run
all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. 25 And
every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now
they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. 26 I
therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that
beateth the air: 27 But I keep under my body, and bring it into
subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I
myself should be a castaway.
Paul also told us to walk in the Spirit, going in the way the Holy
Spirit leads us, contrary to the way our flesh wants to go ...
Galatians 5:16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall
not fulfil the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusteth against the
Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one
to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.