“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not
of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”
– Ephesians 2:8-9
It
has been said that people do not change, they merely adapt. The root of who we are, we cannot
change. The carnality that controls us
is hardwired into us and cannot be purged by the carnal. We need a Savior. The
brutal irony is this, the very thing condemns us, we turn to for comfort. The Savior that would deliver us, we
reject. Jesus Christ can save us from
all sin and only through Him can we change what is within.
“The
carnal man.” This is not a phrase you
are likely to pick up in the mainstream.
Carnality is a hidden agenda, which influences all the evil of the
world. It is a silent killer, a masked murder, an infectious cancer. Carnality is the natural, the sinful, and the
inbred. It is the inherited inclination to rebel against Almighty God. We
received it, a toxic gift, through the fall of Adam. Simply being a man (that is mankind)
qualifies you into this condition, and living to an age of understanding, you will
soon find this condition manifest itself. The covetousness is within, and when
you come of age, the stealing will be without. The hatred is within, and soon, the brawling
with be without. We will cheat, lie, and slander; we will promote and exalt
ourselves, then defraud and abase our neighbor. We can be forever enslaved to
the carnality that is within, all the while, convinced we are completely in
love with it; destined for eternity in hell.
Is this the fate of all mankind? It would have been, had it not been for
Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the only
one that can save us from all sin. He can save from the sins we commit and the
carnality that causes us to commit them. He can deliver from the stealing and
covetousness, from the hatred and brawling, from the innermost unrighteousness
in the back corner of the recess of your heart; Christ can invade and make
holy. The love of self is potent in the recipe
for continuous carnality, and when we try to change ourselves, we fail. Only when we admit to ourselves that we are
broken, can we be saved. For us to have peace, joy, righteousness, and holiness;
Jesus must be Lord of our lives. However, he cannot be Lord if we want to be
lord. Carnality is rooted in the heart of man and out of the heart proceed all
the issues of life; men make up the world, therefore, the world at its very
core is carnal. When we turn to the
world for comfort and healing, we find only more pain and brokenness. That,
which we desire to help us, only hurts us.
Salvation can only come through Jesus Christ, because when we repent,
and ask the Lord to come into our hearts. Committing ourselves to Him. Only
then, can we have the Holy Spirit inside and be free from carnality. Salvation cannot come from the created, only
the Creator.
Carnality
is not subject to the law of God,
because it only wants to be god. Eve
wanted to be like God and so she sinned, Adam did so along with her. Christ is
the gift, offered to mankind to abolish the toxic gift that was inherited by mankind. Holiness is not obtained through process or
progress, through discipline or merit. It is by grace, through faith. Jesus Christ is the Holy Ghost, the Holy
Ghost is the gift of God that will cleanse the heart of a repentant man. A gift
that will sanctify him, change him, and keep him.
