Are You – Spiritual Or Carnal?
To understand the difference between being spiritual and carnal, let’s imagine two spheres; one above and one below. Above is the spiritual life and below is the carnal or natural life. There is a thin line dividing these two spheres, and that line is faith. Every person on the earth is born into the natural sphere. We all have a soul, which is our mind, emotions and will, and we live in a body. The soul and body are the “flesh and blood” of our natural life. Though man has a soul and lives in a body, he is more than these two. He is spirit. He was created in the image of God and God is Spirit.
Man was created to have communion with God and to do His will. He was to live out of his spirit, which was in relationship with God, and direct soul and body to do the will of God. When man sinned, he became separated from God and the law of sin and death entered into his natural life. Instead of being a servant to the spirit, the flesh now became its enemy. Instead of desiring and doing the will of God, now it expresses and demands its own will. Because sin is in the “flesh and blood” of man, flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. God’s judgment is that the flesh must die. Death for the body is the physical death and death for the soul is it’s submission to the Will of God.
The last Adam, Jesus, came from Heaven into the natural realm, to restore man, once again, to communion with the Father. He took man’s sin into His physical body and condemned it to death on the cross. This broke the power and dominion of sin, once and for all. Through the resurrection, salvation was provided for all of mankind. This is experienced through a spiritual new birth. Through faith in the atonement of the blood of Jesus, the believer is restored into fellowship with God and has freedom over sin.
As long as man is alive on the earth, he is still living in his sin-contaminated flesh, which is in rebellion to God. But through faith, he is no longer under its dominion. Redeemed man has been restored to the position of being “seated with Christ in heavenly places”. By living from the spiritual to the natural, man is able to bring the Kingdom of God to earth. The Kingdom of love, joy and peace in the Holy Spirit can now be his experience on a daily basis.
James shows the difference between these two realms by saying that the wisdom from above is peaceable, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere, whereas those who submit themselves to the flesh are disorderly, controlled by selfish ambitions, jealous and even demonic.
To be spiritual, is to set our mind on things above. It is to die to the self-rule of our soul and live according to God’s will. Though the flesh desires its lusts and cravings to be satisfied, its end is death. By living in the Spirit we have life and that more abundantly. Choose to go up, not down.
Scriptures to meditate on:
James 3.13-18; John 3.5-7; I Cor. 15.50; Rom. 6.12-14; 7.18, 23; 14.17