If you are a follower of Jesus, would you say that you are flesh dominant or spirit dominant? Those around you, what would they say about them? Your life lived proves what you believe. Spiritual fruit doesn’t come from a fleshly tree. People will know what kind of tree you are by how you live. The fruit of the spirit is only evident from those who live from the spirit. Those who choose to live from the spirit live by faith. I hope you are beginning to understand the difference.
2 Corinthians 3:1 Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as some others, epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you? 2 You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; 3 clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.
Matthew 7:15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.
Jesus lived in the spirit. All the apostles also lived in the spirit after Pentecost. The real church today is built in the spirit. It’s not a coincidence that Paul wrote to the church in Corinth regarding the church in the spirit. Each part of the body of Christ has a function. Not one part of the body is better than another, but Jesus is the head of the church. Do you see any of the spirit in the congregation to where you attend? If there is no evidence, is the spirit really there?
Luke 4:14 Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region. 15 And He taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.
1 Corinthians 12:12 For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. 13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. 14 For in fact the body is not one member but many.
Colossians 1:17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
Jesus taught that if one part of the body is causing sin cut it off. When there is sin in a gathering, God won’t move. Joshua learned this the hard way in Joshua 7. If the assembly confesses that they are sinners, who do you think they are inviting, the Father of Lights, or the father of sin? Even after being born again and confessing you are a sinner, you are flesh dominant. It is those who, laying their life down, denying themselves, pick up their cross, which is Jesus’s righteousness and are following Him, are living in the spirit. Jesus came to give us life in the spirit. He spoke words of the spirit. He taught they ways of the spirit, the ways of the kingdom. Yet, most of the churches today choose death. Fleshly minded is death, but spiritually minded is life and peace. Choose life my friends. Choose to live in the spirit. Be blessed my friends.
Matthew 5:27 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.
Romans 8:6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,