Focus: The Way Of The Spirit

Text: Jh.3:6

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."

The story of Moses' encounter with God has a lot of lessons for us. One of those lessons is found in verse 2 of Exodus 3, which says, "And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed." The tiny bush or shrub burned with fire, but it remained untouched by the fire. Why? 

I believe the answer is not far-fetched. The bush is natural or physical, but the fire is not. In Hebrews 11, we are informed that Moses saw the invisible, and that means that the fire he saw was an invisible fire - a supernatural phenomena. The Lord Jesus Christ tells us, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." The flesh and the Spirit are poles apart from each other, and there seems to be no meeting point. Natural fire would have ordinarily consumed that tiny and physical bush, but it was not, and it did not.

Divine fire is not the same as natural fire. In spiritual matters, fire that is not of God is regarded as a strange fire. God never approves of using natural means to achieve spiritual success. The flesh cannot please God. The fire of the flesh cannot cook the meals of God or refine spiritual properties. Flesh and spirit travel separate paths and reach different destinations. Spiritual technologies and energies alone produce spiritual outcomes that are pleasing to God. Paul says to the Galatian church, "Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" (Gal.3:3). 

We cannot finish in the flesh what we have started in the spirit. The flesh cannot take the place of the Spirit. God does not tolerate religious syncretism or spiritual adulteration.

Paul says, "For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh" (Phil.3:3). Those who worship God in the spirit have no confidence in the flesh. The way to go is the way of the Spirit. True religion is spiritual, not carnal. We advance in spirituality purely by divine means, not otherwise.

When Ahaziah got sick in Israel, he sent his messengers to go seek for solutions from the gods of Ekron. Then Elijah said to them, "Thus saith the LORD, Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that thou sendest to enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron? therefore thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die" (2Kgs.1:6). God cannot be replaced by man-made gods. We don't need cheap substitutes for God. 

If our God is missing, let us seek Him out, instead of looking for what looks like Him. We need God, not what looks like Him.

You can't solve spiritual problems by natural means. The flesh cannot solve spiritual problems; it rather complicates and compounds them. Physical remedies cannot take care of spiritual maladies. The flesh is a cheap substitute for the absence of the Spirit.

God's way is the way of the Spirit, not the flesh, and the way of the Spirit is the way to go. We don't need the Spirit plus the flesh. It is the Spirit all the way. The flesh and the Spirit are not a good combination. The flesh profits nothing, and nothing good dwells in our flesh.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter