The Lord has communicated to us that in this season He doesn’t just want us to have life but to have it in abundance.
This Life He says, is a restoration of those things that the thief has come to kill, to steal, and to destroy. This life according to Ezekiel 37 brings everything that was once dead back to life.
It is the resurrection life that goes as far as bringing even the dry bones to life, bones to bones, and sinews to sinews until standing up again, to the Glory of the Father, is a man that was once dead. In this life is healing, deliverance, and transformation.
But we wonder, as a question not but boggle our minds, is that everything to this life? Did he give us this life just so we can have healing and deliverance, is this life not more than these? We can answer these by examining the following scriptural verses.
THE YEARNINGS OF THE NEW LIFE
(Psalm 42:1) As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.
(Psalm 42:2) My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?
The psalm above is a portrayal of the new longing that our hearts and souls now have as a virtue of the new life we have now recived. To see God, to appear before Him, to do only what will draw you close to God. These are the longings, the panting of the new life we have received.
If we thus consider Galatians 6:8 which says “For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”
We can see it clearly stated that him that sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap life everlasting. The sowing to the Spirit are these demands the new life will not but place upon us and keeping, obeying and yielding to these demands, as stated in the scriptures leads to life everlasting, life abounding. Before we go on delving into what it means to sow to the Spirit we need to thoroughly deal with the first part of the verse because there yet exists another in this new reality that differs from sowing to the Spirit and it is the reality of sowing to the flesh.
Sowing to the flesh is not as ambiguous and abstract as it sounds. Sowing to the flesh is simply gratifying the longings of the flesh. Here’s what Paul the Apostle said in Galatians 5:16; “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
Defining the terms, lust here means the desires, cravings, longings (especially for what is forbidden), fulfill there means to gratify, to satisfy the longing. Putting this together and interpreting Galatians 6:8 in this light, we can then say sowing to the flesh is satisfying the cravings, longings and desires of the flesh.
Now even before Galatians 6:8 tells us what the effect of that sowing is, our dear master and savior, Jesus, who understands everything we are going through and has once been in our shoe has this to say about the flesh.
John 6:63 a “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing…“
If we therefore have any iota of faith in the words of Jesus, then we will come to understand that there’s not a profit nor advantage in fufiling the desires of the flesh. There are instances where the scriptures uses the phrase “profits little” but our dear Lord in this verse told us that in this particular matter, it profits nothing and Apostle Paul put into clear terms the magnitude of this profitless endeavor. He called it CORRUPTION.
I must at this point say that not all things are unlawful, but not all things edifies (1 Corinthians 6:12). I am not saying by sowing to the flesh, there’s a sin you are committing or not, and of course, no one will by this new life continue perpetually in sin (1 John 3:9), for it is a life that quickens one unto righteousness but what I ring in your ears is that for this life to flow in abundance, there are things that must be done, demands to be met.
What then do we sow to the flesh? It is simple, everything that your flesh long for, for the sake of pleasure!. You watch movies, play games, eat when you feel like, read novels, that are not necessarily bad. All these in themselves are not bad, but they don’t edify you and they only bring pleasure to your flesh, nothing more, as hard as it is to accept or relatively hard I would say, all these are seeds sown to the flesh.
If you hereby continue there-in even after receiving this new life, that scriptures says you are sowing to the flesh and you’ll of the flesh reap corruption. That new life will not flow from your spirit into your soul rather you’ll continue to feed and strengthen your flesh, until a point when you can no longer deny what the flesh wants, including the temptation to commit sin which can now again have a foothold in your life.
Now that you have received a new life, the life begins to place demands on you. These demands are your way out of gratifying the desires of the flesh. Demands like praying, fellowshipping with God, fasting, reading, studying and meditating on the word of God. Overall actions that draws you close to Him, makes you become more acquainted with the giver of this new life that you have received.
We have to come to understand that this is a war between two desires, a struggle between two natures, the carnal, fleshy nature and the nature of the Spirit (Galatians 5:17 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.) and just like every struggle is, whichever sides has the greater strength wins the struggles and overcome in the war.
It then behooves us to be attentive to these demands and to appropriately carry them out because unless we do, the life we have received will not abound in multiple fold and it will do no more than what it has at the onset.
The 18th verse of the third chapter of Paul the Apostles’ second letter to the Church in Corinth says that as we behold, we become, from glory to glory! Yes, the glory isn’t meant to diminish, the life isn’t meant to diminish but only on the wings of beholding will it abound and that is why this life will prompt us to cry in conformity with the psalmist, “when shall I come and appear before my God“; and like in the 27th psalm, cry with the psalmist; “Psalm 27:4-One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple.”
I therefore charge you, dear reader that you cultivate this new and rich life you have received and grow there in! You have a choice to make and your will is involved in this matter, choose one, either Life or Corruption! But I advise brethren, choose LIFE!
(Deuteronomy 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:)
MARANATHA,
EDITORIAL UNIT.
TACSFON UI