Works of the Flesh

I was meditating on works and realized something. You see, scarce a person can be totally perfect and walk in the Spirit in everything. What happens to words, works, and thoughts tainted by the flesh? How does God use us oh-so-human humans? When am I acting completely, naturally and perfectly Spirit and when I am not? How can everything I do be of the Spirit - it is thought out in the mind and accomplished in the flesh, is it not? *sigh* no matter what I do it is tainted. It's not perfect. I can't be perfect!

That's what sanctification is about. It's the process of purifying, or setting-apart. Our gifts and service to God are far from perfect. Even were I to die, be burned to ashes, still it would not be a perfect sacrifice. only Yeshua is, was, and can be, the perfect sacrifice and He has completed that. In witnessing, in prayer, in learning the word, surely no one is free of the taints of flesh and self. How then? God will bring every work through the fire of purification. He Himself will shake everything from us that can be shaken, burn everything from us that can be burned. I can't wait to be perfect.

I may have the right motive, but wrong outworking. I may have the right action, but the wrong motive. I may have the right thought, but express it wrongly. God is the one who will bring us to the place of the cross and gradually, more, and more , it will be less of me and more of God. God will take the machaira sword of Scripture and slowly, gradually, steadily, peel away the flesh, seperating soul and spirit.

Every of you and I naturally is soul and flesh. God is at work, transforming. No one is perfect. All have sinned. No one is any better than another. What is the difference? Where I stand with YHWH - whether i am in Christ or not. The miraculous thing is that I cannot be totally in Christ physically after all I still have a human body, but I am "dying daily". I can't love God perfectly on my own. He is causing me to love Him, more and more every day. Once I have taken that next time I cannot turn back. It's going from glory to glory. The "continuous" tense of salvation is very real.

I have no need to fear. He who begun the work of salvation in me will complete it until the day of the Messiah. He is more than able.