Welcome to YOU ‘Family’

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole SPIRIT and SOUL and BODY be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. – 1Th 5:23

In trying to describe the nature of Man’s composition, I’ve found it particularly useful to compare it with a small family of three: a man, his wife and their child.

Under this analogy, the man is the SPIRIT, the wife is the SOUL, and the child is the BODY. The man and woman are co-heads of this family and both control the child. The child does not have a say in how the family is run (and does not even know how it is run); so all it does is make demands that will be to its own comfort and convenience. It’s left to ‘Daddy’ and ‘Mummy’ to determine what’s best for her.

Households where the ‘child’ is given free rein – complete freedom, with no restraints or limitations – inevitably end up in ruin and disaster. Households where the ‘child’ is kept in check (though not abused) by the ‘parents’, end up being healthy and productive.

Of course, there are certain restrictions to this ‘family’ that does not apply to real ones. For example, the three of them are always in the same place at the same time. Which is why when we see the ‘child’ at a raucous, indecent soirée, we do not scold her! Rather we confront the grownup ‘Dad’ and ‘Mom’ that brought her to such unwholesome environment (last week’s “BODY” series).

And here’s another peculiar limitation of our analogy. In this “family”, only the husband can be ‘Born-Again’; God only comes to ‘Daddy’. Therefore, after his salvation, it’s Daddy’s duty to see to the spiritual transformation of the rest of the ‘family’.

This is why Paul in Rom 12:1 orders the ‘Man’ to present his ‘child’ “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God”; and in the next verse tells him that the key to his transformation is in the renewal of his ‘wife’.

How well have you been running you family?

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN

Spiritual Carnality

For you are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. – 1Co 6:20

We meditated previously about the oxymoronic concept of “Carnal Spirituality”; today, we’ll focus on the obverse – and positive – aspect of it: “Spiritual Carnality”.

 

The English word “carnal” is a derivative of the Latin carn which meant “flesh” or “meat”. It retains the later sense in Spanish food names like carne asada (“roast meat”), olla de carne,  (beef stew, literally “pot of meat”), and the spicy Texan dish, chili con carne (literally “chili with meat”).

So, though 1Cor 3 makes us associate “carnality” with spiritual immaturity, its primary denotation is “physicality” – the state of being ‘meat’ or ‘flesh’.

Spiritual Carnality, therefore, is living the Christian life with the consciousness that the physical body is an integral part of who we are. (“Spiritual” here takes the 1Cor 3 denotation of “mature”).

It’s the acknowledgement that the Body is a gift given to us by God and not a curse imposed on us by the Devil (Gen 2:7; Col 2:17). It’s treating the Body with respect as God’s holy temple and not degrading or abusing it. It’s keeping it sacred, rested, and healthy – always available to do the Lord’s work whenever and wherever He needs it.

This current body may be transient, but spiritual carnality makes us appreciate that how we treat it, and what we do with it, has far long-lasting repercussions.

“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that everyone may be recompensed for the things done in his body, according to what he has done, whether it be good or bad.” – 2Co 5:10.

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN

Carnal Spirituality

How can spirituality be termed “carnal”? It’s like saying “dry water” or “weightless rock”. In the KJV, the term “carnal” is used for things related to the BODY, that is, physical, temporal, matters (as opposed to spiritual, Rom 15:27; 1Cor 9:11; 2Cor 10:4;). It’s also used, by extension, to refer to fleshly desires (1Pt 2:11).

In 1 Cor 3, however, Paul uses the term to refer to spiritual immaturity – the state of not growing up in Christ but instead living pettily. It’s this use that makes the oxymoronic phrase “Carnal spirituality” possible.

What, then, is “Carnal Spirituality”? Carnal Spirituality is being immature and petty about matters of spirituality. Carnal Spirituality is making an exaggerated show of spirituality in our behaviour.

Carnal Spirituality is judging people who laugh in conversation, dance in church, or watch TV at home. Carnal Spirituality is considering any sermon that does not make people cry as “uninspired”. Carnal Spirituality is assessing people’s dressing in church and judging the pastor’s style of preaching. Carnal Spirituality is looking down on Believers who are struggling with sin or showing no understanding for those who are not as dedicated to God's work as we are.

Carnal Spirituality is starting to pray in tongues when someone knocks on the door, or leaving our study bibles open so they should know that we’re ‘deep’.

Carnal Spirituality is majoring on issues that are minor (or even absent) in scripture and minoring on clear doctrinal truths. Carnal Spirituality is calling every expression of humanness “carnal”.

Furthermore, Carnal Spirituality is having a brother or sister in your mind to forward this message to, because THEY are the ones who need to hear it, not you, (obviously J).

(Do still forward it please; I added that  line so they'll not think you forwarded it to them because you feel they're guilty of it).

We are all carnally spiritual at some point in time. The problem only arises when we refuse to grow out of it.

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN

Spirituality or Spiritism?

Asceticism does not mean spirituality. Col 2 tells us that exaggerated show of godliness, self-abasement and neglecting of the body has no impact on one’s standing with God.

External sanctimony and air of ‘spirituality’ was one of the many gripes our Lord had with the Pharisees during His walk on Earth. Ironically, the reverse was one  of theirs with Him!

Jesus didn’t ‘dignify’ Himself the way they did. He milled around with the common folks, ate publicly, and was so regular that at the time of His arrest the soldiers needed an insider to spot Him out from among His disciples.

We doctrinally affirm that Christ was FULLY man, yet we sometimes  shy away from the implications of that truth. The man Jesus was as just a man as we are (or else the point of the Incarnation is defeated). He didn’t speak in tongues to re-energise His body when He got tired; no, He slept, and probably snored too. He wasn’t pretending to be asleep during the storm in Mar 4:35-41, he was physically – deeply – asleep. He Himself admits that He was notorious for his “eating and drinking” (Mat 11:1). And if He ate, that means He also had to go see ‘john’, (the euphemism, not the Apostle)!

Why then do we as ministers publicly pride ourselves in not eating and sleeping? While our tight schedules may impose such extremes on us (it happened to Jesus, too), it doesn’t mean we should then wield it as a badge of honour. There’re no rewards for the abuse of the body on Judgment Day.

Historically, extreme asceticism does not lead to spiritualty but actually to SPIRITISM – an undue emphasises and fascination with spirits and communications with the spirit world. The scriptures never sanctioned us to directly seek to communicate with spirits – whether angles or demons; biblical spiritualty is expressed in our obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit as outlined in His Word, and commutating with Him in prayer, (Rom 8:14).

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN

Your Body Is Not The Enemy

It’s quite interesting how we generally demonise the body in our bids to attain holiness. The body’s seen as the tool of the Devil; the enemy that stops us from serving God fully.  In fact, someone once wrote a “letter” on WhatsApp to his body, accusing it of trying to take him to Hell! (His body should sue him for libel).

This notion of the body being evil is not only unscriptural, but plays well into the hands of the Devil. Firstly, it takes our focus off the real culprit – our MINDS. When a man tells you the sin he just committed was his body’s decision, you don’t take him to church; you take him to a psychiatric hospital! That’s where we take people whose bodies act independent of their minds to. Normal bodies act only in obedience to whatever their minds dictate.

Secondly, it makes us have a hateful attitude to God’s dwelling place! The Believer’s body is holy, in the literal sense of the word. 1 Cor 6:19 clearly states that “your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.” Isn’t it amazing how the Devil, who we’ve all known to try to take people to Hell, has conveniently shifted the focus off himself to God’s living quarters?

You’ll find the demonization and ill view of the body in Buddhism, Hinduism, and other works-based religions, but not in biblical Christianity. Flogging your body, crawling on nails, defacing yourself, etc. all in a bid to “mortify” the sin nature is not only senseless but insulting to the Holy Spirit.

If we desire to live holy and consecrated lives, our Lord says we should bother less about the body and spend our energies... on the MIND:

“For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies”  – Mat 15:19.

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN