The mystery of spiritual growth is in the fact that the more we give up on the things of the flesh and yield ourselves to the things of the spirit the more we receive the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.
Flesh in this context is human nature and its sinful passions which is not governed by Spirit of Christ.
Let’s take this interesting view of Jesus on this matter: “”Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit, (NKV) Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life” NLT. (John 3:5-6)
If we must grow spiritually we must receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit and come to a place where we make self-denial and the promotion of the things of the Kingdom the primary objectives of our lives as opposed to craving and giving place to the desires of the flesh (Acts 1:8).
The Bible talks of the works of the flesh few of which includes : sexual lusts and all extra marital sexual activities, hatred, envying , murders, drunkenness, revellings, etc adding further “that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:19 -21).
From the foregoing it is obviously clear that the flesh and the spirit are not compatible.
If we must receive the power of the Holy Spirit from God we must clean up our lives from all ungodliness and honestly seek the Lord for his gift of the Holy Spirit.
The more we seek the Lord and stand on his word the more we will have the infilling of the Holy Spirit and the more we would be filled with faith in the name of Jesus.
An evidence of the infilling of the Holy Ghost is faith and boldness. Where the counsel of men generate discouragement and fear the man of God will speak faith with boldness.
Isaiah 53:1 says: “ who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?” The Lord reveals himself to only those who obey and seek Him and not to those deep in the works of the flesh and other forms of disobedience.
After the spies explored the promised land for forty days (Numbers 13:25–33) they gave a fearful report to the community:
“We entered the land you sent us to explore, and it is indeed a bountiful country—a land flowing with milk and honey…..But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak! “
This is what the flesh does: it fills us with fear and doubts because we lack the in-dwelling power of the Holy Spirit.
But faith rose in Joshua and Caleb to give another report of the same situation: “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.” (Numbers 13:30)
Without yielding ourselves to God through the Holy Spirit we cannot arrive at the place of our divinely ordained destiny as the children of God . The works of the flesh will continue to truncate our divine potentials made only possible by the Holy Spirit.
To this end the Bible makes it clear: “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. (Galatians 5:17)
For us to do the things that pleases God and for us to arrive at the place of our divine potential to do mighty works for God, and to unleash our potential as children of God we must set aside all sinful passions and seek God for an outpouring of his Spirit today.
