The Holy Spirit (15) – Demolish Fleshly Thoughts The Holy Spirit (1)
“We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of
Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5)
- Obstacles against obedience
To hear and receive the voice and guidance of the Holy Spirit, we have to cast off untruths in our heart and fill it with truth. For this, we have to block the lust of the eyes, pray fervently, and try our best to receive the grace and strength of God and the help of the Holy Spirit.
If our heart is filled with truth this way, we can hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, but we cannot hear it very clearly from the beginning. At first, we may get confused as to whether it is the Holy Spirit’s voice or not, but as we keep on obeying the voice, we receive His guidance and experience God’s works, so we come to distinguish the voice of the Holy Spirit more clearly.
Namely, in order to more clearly hear the Holy Spirit’s voice and be guided by Him, we have to obey the voice that we hear. Only when we obey, will God give us clearer voice and lead us in more detail to the prosperous ways.
Sometimes people receive advice from others. Sometime they are not direct advice, but they hear some explanations so they can understand their shortcomings. But in many cases, when they hear advice, they do not even think of what it means but immediately give reasons and excuses from their viewpoint. Of course, each one has different circumstances. But if they try to understand when they hear advice from others, they will change themselves to be more pleasing in God’s sight.
If they do not receive advice but only give excuses, or if they do not change at all though they do not give excuses, it is difficult for others to advise them any more.
It is the same with God. When He lets you hear the Holy Spirit’s voice many times, if you ignore the voice and do not obey, it is meaningless for God to speak to you through the Holy Spirit’s voice. Because God gave us freewill, He does not force those who disobey, and to them, the voice of the Holy Spirit becomes fainter and fainter.
Let me give you an example, a person who lies very well received grace in the sermon, made up his mind not to lie again, and prayed to God to help him. Later, he encountered a situation where he could lie to seek his benefit. In the beginning, he heard the Holy Spirit’s voice telling him, “you should not do that,” so he felt the qualms.
He was struggling between the heart to obey the Holy Spirit’s voice and to seek his own benefit, and he finally told a lie. Then, when he is about to tell a lie again next time, the voice of the Holy Spirit gets fainter. If he keeps on repeating telling lies, the voice gets even fainter, and finally, he will not be able to hear any voice so that he will not even have the struggle in his heart.
1 Thessalonians 5:19 tells us not to put out the Spirit’s fire, but this person put out the voice of the Holy Spirit telling him not to lie. This can be applied to all aspects of our lives. When God lets us hear the Holy Spirit’s voice or leads us to a certain way, if we do not obey many times, God cannot help but just leave us.
Sometimes, God has to punish a child who is going to the way of death so that he may turn back, but if God has to do it, this child is in a situation where he can hardly hear the Holy Spirit’s voice.
If you keep on disobeying the Holy Spirit’s voice that teaches us with truth, the voice which is getting fainter will finally disappear. The reason why we cannot obey even after hearing the voice is that we have more of the heart of untruth following the lust of the flesh than to hear and to obey the desires of the Holy Spirit.
When the voice tells us not to hate, people still want to hate. When it tells us to cast off pride, they still want to be lifted, so they disobey following the desires of the flesh. But if you block the lust of the eyes and pray fervently, you will gradually cast away untruth and change your heart into heart of truth. To that extent, it will be easier to obey the Holy
Spirit’s voice.
But the problem is that even among those who love God and try their best in their life in faith, there are people who cannot hear or receive the voice and guidance of the Holy Spirit.
They try to practice what they learn from the messages, so it seems that the messages do not really apply to them. Namely, they think, “I am living according to God’s word.” But if they are truly living according to God’s will and are recognized by Him, there must be the evidence, but they do not have any evidence. There is something like a spiritual blockage.
Although they have been Christians for a long period of time, they cannot go beyond certain limits and just stay at one place. Why does this happen? It is because they are strongly tied up with their own fleshly thoughts without realizing it.
Therefore, to hear and receive the voice and guidance of the Holy Spirit, you have to try your best with prayers, and at the same time realize what your fleshly thoughts are. Also, you should find out what kind of fleshly thoughts you are utilizing and why you have such thoughts in your everyday life.
As said, “knowledge is power,” to realize what kind of fleshly thoughts you have becomes a great strength for you to hear and receive the voice and guidance of the Holy Spirit.
2. Spiritual Thoughts and Fleshly Thoughts
Because we live with thinking everyday, to think is as natural as breathing. But Romans 8:6 says, “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.” Then, what is the fleshly thought, not just thought, and what is spiritual thought?
Furthermore, the following verse 7 says, “because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so.” We should obviously not have fleshly thoughts since it is hostile toward God and is death.
For this, we should understand what fleshly thoughts are, and understand the basic concepts of thought, knowledge, theory, and framework.
But since these concepts are already explained in spirit, soul, and body lectures and other materials, let us just go over it briefly.
First, a thought is to retrieve through the operation of soul the knowledge that is stored in the memory system of our brain. Men gain a lot of knowledge from birth. The knowledge includes not only the knowledge they learn in schools and life, but also everything in their brains including their own wisdom of life and their values.
The knowledge that is input along with feelings is stored in the memory system of the brain, and when necessary, it is retrieved from the memory’s storage. For example, when a person, who has the knowledge that chilly is spicy, sees a chilly, he will probably think, “It will be spicy if I eat it.”
Or when he sees another person who is eating a chilly, he may think, “That person may need some water.” Likewise, the thought is the retrieval of the knowledge that is input in the head, and there are two kinds of thoughts.
One is spiritual thought and the other is fleshly thought. In other words, the spiritual thought is the thought of truth and the fleshly thought is the thought of untruth. The reason why thoughts are divided into two kinds is that the knowledge in this world is divided into knowledge of truth and knowledge of untruth.
If you retrieve the knowledge of truth, you will have the thought of truth, and if you retrieve the knowledge of untruth, you will have the thought of untruth, namely fleshly thoughts. But most of what the worldly people believe as truth is not truth at all in God’s sight and is wrong information.
For example, in some heroism novels, taking revenge against the enemy is expressed as a right, and if you do not revenge, you are considered an inept coward. Those who read these novels and are moved in their heart will naturally have the value that it is righteous to take revenge. They will just think it is right.
But reflecting on God’s word it is not “truth.” The knowledge of truth says, “Love your enemy, and forgive seventy times seven.” Those who have this kind of knowledge of truth
will try to have thoughts of truth, spiritual thoughts such as, “I should forgive and love him.”
Then, as said the mind set on the spirit is peace, they will be filled with the Holy Spirit and have overflowing peace from their heart. They go to the way of life with which God is pleased.
But those who have the knowledge untruth will give excuses with their own thoughts and disobey when God tells them to love their enemies. They think, “That person is so evil, and he did such an evil act that I cannot love him,” and they will still hate others.
Likewise, retrieving the wrong knowledge, the knowledge of untruth is the thought of untruth, namely fleshly thoughts.
The thoughts coming out from the untruth stand against God and make us disobey Him, so they are hostile towards God. If we continuously follow the fleshly thoughts that are against God, we will finally fall into the way of death.
3. Disobedience Caused by Fleshly Thoughts –King Saul
One of the representative cases of standing against God with his fleshly thoughts is King Saul portrayed in 1 Samuel chapter 15. God told him to attack Amalek and said to him, “Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”
This was the nemesis and curse for the Amalekites for standing against God, and it had to be done just as He had said. But when King Saul was attacking them, he felt it was a waste to kill all the livestock.
He thought it would be better to take them and sacrifice to God and use them as needed. How economical and thrifty is human thought? Also, if King Saul had captured the king of Amalek and shown him to the people, his victory would have shone more brightly, so he wanted to capture the Amalekite king alive rather than to kill him. So, he brought the good livestock and captured the king of Amalek alive.
This way, Saul obeyed every word of God except the ones that were different from his own thoughts. Then, what did God say? Did God say, “You were wise in doing it. You did well for you obeyed what agreed with your own thinking.”? Of course not! God said that since Saul disobeyed God’s will, it meant Saul forsook God’s word. Because of that, God forsook Saul, too.
The thoughts that Saul had were, after all, fleshly thoughts that came from his greed and pride. Did God tell Saul to destroy everything of Amalek because He was not as wise as Saul? He commanded it as it was the most appropriate thing by the law of the spiritual realm; it was by the providence and rules that men cannot understand.
Still, Saul chose what he thought was wise and good, so it means he thought he knew better than God. Saul, whose eyes were shut due to his arrogance, thought he obeyed God even after his disobedience, and even when Samuel came to him and advised him, he neither acknowledged his fault nor did he repent of it. After that, Saul kept on disobeying God using his own fleshly thoughts, and finally he became an enemy of God and faced a miserable death.
In the Old Testament days when Saul was living, God spoke to those who were proper in His heart and let them work His will, but today, the Holy Spirit who dwells in our heart lets us realize the will of God.
If we disobey after hearing the Holy Spirit’s voice, it is just like Saul disobeying God’s command during the Old Testament days. But today, many people who say they have faith keep on disobeying the voice of the Holy Spirit. They think that it is too difficult to act as the Holy Spirit’s voice is urging. Or they use their own thoughts thinking, “I hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, but I think it would be better in another way.”
But God delights more over those who trust His word and obey it with all their heart than those who give to God what seems to be good to them but disobey Him. 1 Samuel 15:22 says, “Samuel said, ‘Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices As in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams.’”
Today, there are many people who follow their own fleshly thoughts and disobey God like Saul. There are some cases in which people disobey following what seems to be good to them. And you should not just think, “There are people like that!” or “That is somebody else’s problem.” You should be able to find yourself in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. If there is no knowledge of untruth stored at all in us, we cannot have any thoughts of untruth.
If we had been born in a place like the Garden of Eden and taught by God who is the truth itself, it is possible that we would not have input anything untruth. Romans 3:10 says, “As it is written, ‘There is none righteous, not even one.’” The knowledge of untruth will be stored in everybody who is born and raised on this earth. But even if the knowledge of untruth is stored in us, if we keep on realizing the untruth in us and casting it off while learning the word of God, our fleshly thoughts will gradually disappear.
Even if there is something that you do not realize by yourself, when God reveals it with the sharp word that is like the double-edged sword, you will be able to find the untruth in you and cast it off. If you remove all fleshly thoughts by undertaking this process, you can obey God’s word as you hear the Holy Spirit’s voice. If you are such a person as this, you will be loved by God so much. You will receive blessings whether you come in or go out, you will be the head but not the tail, and God will answer to even the smallest desire you have in your heart.
4. Process of Fleshly Thoughts Being Utilized
When you first believe in the Lord and receive God’s grace and the fullness of Holy Spirit, you want to preach the gospel to many people. But some say their body does not follow their desire.
When you want to give out leaflets or something, you first think, “What will this person think of me? Won’t he consider me a strange person?” You cannot open your mouth to speak because of shyness.
Also, thinking about to whom you would preach the gospel, seeing the people on the street, you may think, “I get too strong of an impression of him.” “Her clothes are too worldly, so she won’t believe anyway.” or “He doesn’t look like the kind who would
accept the gospel.” You hesitate to preach the gospel in your thoughts. You just do not know whom to preach the gospel and hesitate, and just waste your time.
All these things are fleshly thoughts. If you do not have any unnecessary fleshly thoughts, you can preach the gospel without any hesitation. Luke 9:26 says, “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”
To preach the gospel is to spread life. Our Lord is so pleased with this. So, what is the reason to feel shy about it? Also, because the Lord looks at the heart, we do not have to judge anybody by looking at his appearance, thinking, “Will he or will he not accept the gospel…?”
Those who have cast off all these fleshly thoughts will receive the inspiration so clearly even about the method to preach the gospel. They hear the voice of the Holy Spirit as to what words they should say.
The Holy Spirit can let us know even about a problem in somebody’s heart, so if we just express it clearly, it would be very easy to preach the gospel. If you can just hear the voice and obey it, you will bear abundant fruits in not only preaching but also all aspects of your life.
But what hinders us from hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit is our fleshly thoughts. Romans 8:7 says, “because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so.” Now, let us talk about the fleshly thought that we can easily find in our everyday life.
These cases are not somebody else’s stories. Even if you say, “I have never done anything like that,” in most cases, it is not because you do not have any fleshly thought but because you have not been in that kind of situation, so you do not realize how you might have reacted. You should thoroughly examine and discover yourself through what is explained here. You should then cast off fleshly thoughts quickly and hear the voice of the Holy Spirit.
5. Examples of Fleshly Thoughts
A thought is the retrieval of the knowledge that is stored in the memory system of our brain. It is done through the operation of soul. Especially, if we retrieve wrong knowledge that is not truth, it is a fleshly thought.
For example, while you are preaching suppose you say, “Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and was born of a Virgin. “The Christ rose from death.” These things are possible by the power of God who created all things.
But with the knowledge of this world, for the worldly people, it is never possible for a virgin to have a baby. Also, they cannot understand a dead person coming back to life after several days.
Therefore, they judge what you say using their own knowledge and fleshly thoughts in thinking, “It is a lie,” “It is just impossible to believe it.” They will react in the same way if you tell them, “The blind comes to see, the mute to speak, and incurable diseases are healed by the power of God.”
Because they have their own knowledge and theories that those things can never happen, they cannot believe when they hear such things. Their fleshly thought saying, “How can one be healed by prayer,” sets itself up against God.
But if they keep on hearing the gospel and actually see the manifestation of God’s power, they can realize that their own knowledge is not correct. They will understand things that are impossible in the 3rd dimensional world are actually possible by the power of God.
When they face some difficulty, their heart becomes poor, and if they open their heart without utilizing their thoughts, they can receive the works of the Holy Spirit. Even about things that do not agree with their knowledge that they learned in this world, they can receive the faith from above.
Therefore, if you do not have faith yet, you should realize that your worldly knowledge that is opposite to God’s word is actually wrong.
Even if you believe in the Lord and accept Him as your Savior, it is not the end of salvation. The next step is that you have to live according to God’s word. If you profess
your faith in God but do not practice the words of instruction in the Bible, it means you do not have true faith.
- Thessalonians 5:23 says, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
In the process of becoming sanctified, the hindrance is the fleshly thoughts. For example, Matthew 7:1 says, “Do not judge so that you will not be judged.” Only God knows the inner heart of men, and if we judge others just by looking at the appearances, it becomes a wall between God and you.
But those who judge usually think that they are not judging, but consider it as just a matter of fact, or they know what is right because they have good common sense and intuition. This way, they do not even realize that they are violating God’s word.
For example, let us suppose you saw a man and woman whom you know well, talking to each other on a bench. Then, you will have different feelings according to the truth and untruth. Men of untruth will immediately use his fleshly thoughts. “They must be having an inappropriate relationship since they are meeting each other in secret.”
But a man of truth does not just judge with untruthful thoughts looking at only the appearance. He might think, “They must have a good reason to meet like that.” If he has to know about it for some reason, he can just pray about that asking God, “What is it about?”
If he is not judging them but truly asking God out of true necessity, God will let him know with the voice of the Holy Spirit. But in most cases, without receiving this kind of work of the Holy Spirit, people use their fleshly thoughts, judge, condemn, and even spread false rumors building up a wall of sin between themselves and God.
Or, when you encounter a person you know, if he just avoids you or does not greet you a couple of times what would you think? Many will judge thinking, “He must have some ill-feelings against me,” and have ill-feelings yourselves, too.
But actually, he was near-sighted without glasses and did not recognize you, or he was in such a deep contemplation that he just happened to pass you by. But because fleshly thoughts come out first through the untruths in their heart, they judge and have ill-feelings.
Also, when they listen to sermons, many people judge the sermon within their
thoughts. When I explain something with the example of a certain unknown person, people think it is the story of somebody they know, but actually, it is completely wrong. Also, even if I give general examples during the sermon, they think it is about them and feel bad.
They’d better receive the word as their own and repent, but they don’t. They think as if the preacher had some ill-feelings against them, so they themselves come to have ill- feelings and disappointment. All these things are fleshly thoughts and due to these you cannot obey God’s word.
There is not only judging like this. When they hear, “Pray continually,” some people think, “I am too busy doing my work, and I am too tired.” When they hear, “Give thanks in all circumstances,” they give thanks for what they can, but they are not always thankful. They think, “It is natural that I cannot give thanks because I am this poor, I have a disease, and my family is having a hard time.”
If they hear, “Give proper tithes,” they include thanks offerings, charity work offerings, and other church group membership fees in their tithes. If they have to give 100 dollars of tithe, they think, “I am giving it to God anyway,” and give 50 dollars as thanks offerings, 30 dollars as charity work, and the rest as tithe. This may look good to them but in God’s sight, they did not obey His word.
These examples are very basic things about fleshly thoughts. If you have faith to some extent, not many of you will deliberately disobey God’s word with your thoughts, knowing that it is the word of God.
But without realizing it, you have your own theories and framework, so even if you try to obey God’s word you naturally have fleshly thoughts. You form your own thoughts and way of life as you continue your life on this earth.
If that framework is very strong, after you come into faith, you can learn God’s word only within your own framework. It hinders you from learning the true will of God.
To that extent, you cannot hear the voice of the Holy Spirit deeply, so even if you are a Christian for a long time and you work a lot for God’s kingdom, your faith does not really grow and you cannot bear abundant spiritual fruits. Therefore, to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit clearly, you should realize your own theories and framework that set you apart from God’s will. For example, one might have lived a life in sorrow and resentment looking at
only the dark side of life. So, even in faith this person has fleshly thoughts with this framework of a negative outlook. He may pray and try his best, but when he sees somebody else receiving the blessing that he wanted to receive, or when he feels that others are going ahead of him, he gets disappointed.
If you obey the word of truth, it is love to rejoice with the truth, so you should rejoice with the one who has received blessings. You are also challenged and encouraged by that person and endeavor more in your faith. But this person loses his strength thinking, “I am trying my best, too, so why is that person the only one receiving blessings? What am I? Probably I don’t have good heart at all.” Within the negative framework, he has fleshly thoughts and he gets disappointed. He does not realize that he is having fleshly thoughts.
Also, a person may have framework of criticizing and accusing himself, so to him, God is not a God of love but of law and judgment. He practices the truth not because he loves God but because he is afraid of God’s punishment. If he makes a mistake, he rebukes and mistreats himself so much, so he cannot even go before God. He loses his strength to pray. Also, this kind of person does not understand and accept other people considering their level of faith but condemns their shortcomings and tries to lead them by force.
For example, let us suppose there is a leader in a mission group who thought it would be good to have a prayer meeting everyday in his mission group. He loves to pray and he is so passionate about God’s kingdom, so he establishes prayer as the first priority. This is a good thing.
But, the problem is that he does not think of the majority who cannot really follow him. If God let him make this prayer meeting by the guidance of the Holy Spirit because it is absolutely necessary in addition to Daniel Prayer Meeting, God will take the responsibility for the results. Since the Holy Spirit works in all the members in the same way, He would move the heart of other members also and gather them, and bless them as God planned.
But if the plan is made by your own thought with your own faith, there will be sounds of discord and no peace. People’s hearts cannot be united as one. Of course, God will receive all their prayers, but since it is not really the method set by God, they cannot see
fiery works of the Holy Spirit or bear great fruit.
Even so, one who is tied within his own framework cannot realize what he did with his own fleshly thoughts. But rather, thinking, “It is the will of God to pray, and it is very important for revival, but why don’t the members gather to pray!” he feels sorry or even has some resentment against others.
For this person to clearly hear the voice of the Holy Spirit and receive His guidance in doing God’s work, he first has to break his own framework of doing things within his own standards. Once he breaks this framework through many kinds of trials, his fleshly thoughts will disappear and he will be able to act by the clear voice and guidance of the Holy Spirit.
- Corinthians 10:5 says, “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” Also, Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
People’s standards on what is right and wrong are all different. That is why when they have debates, they never back off from insisting on their own argument. But through the word of God, we can find the wrong knowledge, theories, and frameworks of each person.
Of course, sometimes you may not realize what your shortcomings are although you listen to the word and pray hard, because your spiritual understanding is slow. But even in this case, God gives you chances in many ways. He allows you trials through some incidents or something, so that you will have humble and poor heart.
So, when you deny yourself and try to discern the will of God through fervent prayers, then the depth and breadth of your understanding will be different, and you will change quickly. We should look back on ourselves with humble mind as to what kind of fruit we are bearing and what kind of frameworks, theories, and fleshly thoughts we have. Then, we can even realize ourselves and break our fleshly thoughts and frameworks even through somebody else’s trials