Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries |
The will of God that most believers resist. Knowing no man after the flesh. Part 2.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Mar4:24, “Be careful what you listen to.”
LUK 8:18, Therefore take care how you listen;
JER 49:23b For they have heard bad news; They are disheartened. There is anxiety by the sea, It cannot be calmed.
LAM 4:17, Yet our eyes failed; Looking for help was useless. In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save.
JER 48:7, For because of your trust in your own achievements and treasures, Even you yourself will be captured;
JER 23:16-17, Thus says the Lord of hosts, “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you. They are leading you into futility; They speak a vision of their own imagination, Not from the mouth of the Lord. They keep saying to those who despise Me, ‘The Lord has said, You will have peace;’ And as for everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart, They say, ‘Calamity will not come upon you.’”
JER 17:5, Thus says the Lord, “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind And makes flesh his strength, And whose heart turns away from the Lord.”
JER 8:11, “And they heal the brokenness of the daughter of My people superficially, Saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ But there is no peace.”
Knowing the angelic conflict.
2. Knowing the glorification of God.
3. Knowing or recognizing no one after the flesh.
The phrase
according to the flesh
is a reference to knowing or recognizing no one on the basis of our flesh not their flesh.
Not recognizing or knowing others according to the human viewpoint of our own soul or the thought pattern of our old sin nature.
2CO 5:16, Consequently, from now on we estimate and regard no one from a [purely] human point of view [in terms of natural standards of value]. (AMP)
[No] even though we once did estimate Christ from a human viewpoint and as a man, yet now [we have such knowledge of Him that] we know Him no longer [in terms of the flesh].
There was a time when we didn’t know the Lord Jesus Christ and all the implications of His spiritual life but we knew Him from a religious standpoint.
We were completely ignorant of such things such as His finished work upon the cross for us.
Then the gospel came through and faith in Christ took the scales off of our eyes or the scar tissue off of our soul.
The day that you were born again, part of the grace ministry of God the Holy Spirit in regeneration, Titus 3:5, was to remove the scar tissue of the soul or harness of the heart from the influence of religion.
We all start out our new spiritual life with the opportunity to have grace and truth manifested in the left lobe (mind) and the right lobe (heart) of the soul.
2CO 5:16, Therefore from now on we recognize no man according to the flesh; it means we are to recognize no one according to our human viewpoint or our flesh.
PHI 1:6, For I am confident of this very thing, that He who has begun in you an absolute good work will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.
PHI 2:13 for it is God [the Holy Spirit] who is at work in you, both to will and to work above and beyond His good pleasure.
Obsession with yourself in these matters is a dead end;
JOH 6:63, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”
Focusing on the self life or the flesh is the opposite of focusing on God.
2CO 5:16, Therefore from now on we recognize no man according to the flesh beginning with yourself;
Anyone who is absorbed in themselves inevitably completely ignores God.
They end up thinking more about self than God.
They have no idea about the importance of our first two important doctrines to understand; knowing the angelic conflict; knowing the glorification of God.
EXO 20:3, “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
HEB 10:38, But My righteous one shall live by faith; And if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him.
You will be too consumed by your own flesh and therefore compete and compare with the flesh of others.
2CO 10:12, For we are not bold to class or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves; but when they measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding.
EPH 4:3, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
We all need to be alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.
PHI 2:2, Bring to completion my inner happiness [in your life] by thinking the same things, maintaining the same virtue-love, united in soul, concentrating on the same objective. Do nothing motivated by contentiousness or ambitious pride, but with humility of mind [by means of grace orientation] let each of you keep on considering one another as more important than himself;
LUK 16:12, “And if you have not been faithful in {the use of} that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own?”
PHI 2:4-5, do not merely be regarding your own personal interests, but also for the personal interests of others. Keep on thinking this [doctrine] within yourselves which was also resident in Christ Jesus,”