Study Notes

Foundation Statement: You crucify your flesh by starving it to death.  People’s flesh gets stronger than their spirit because they feed it, exercise it, and rest it.

 

I.      Destroy the power of the flesh by not feeding it-Galatians 5:24

A.    Crucify – Destroy it’s power utterly, destruction w/intense pain

1.      When you’re not feeding the flesh to the flesh it will feel like intense pain because of what it wants, but is not getting

2.      A lot of people are feeding their flesh and starving their spirits and their spirits are crucified; Their spirits have now power or say in their life

B.     The more you feed the flesh and exercise it the stronger it gets and the stronger its desires get

1.      The less you feed the flesh and exercise it the weaker it gets

2.      Whenever you feed, exercise and rest the flesh you’re making provisions for it.  You’re making it stronger. (Romans 13:14)

3.      To weaken your flesh: 1) Don’t feed it, 2) Don’t exercise it (do what it wants) 3) Don’t let it rest (constantly make it do what it doesn’t want to do)

C.    You stop feeding the flesh by feeding your spirit and strengthening your spirit to the place your spirit is strong enough to tell your flesh NO (Romans 8:13)

1.      You’re going to kill the deeds or practices of the body through your spirit

2.      When you spirit is strong and fed on the word you can tell your flesh no and destroy the practices of it

a.    Many people can’t tell their flesh now because their spirit is so weak

II.     The principle of either being flesh-ruled carnal or spirit-ruled spiritual is if you feed it, it will grow

A.    Through a continuance to feed and exercise the flesh you’ll create a flesh monster

1.      Your flesh and the desire of your flesh will be strong from you feeding it and it’ll dominate your life

2.      You’ll be in lasciviousness where you’re out of control

a.    Lasciviousness – Absence of restraint, unbridled lust, excessive consumption of food or wild undisciplined living that’s especially marked by unbridled sex (Galatians 5:21)

b.    What’s happened is you’ve fed that desire of the flesh to the point that its extremely strong and controlling your life

c.     Your life is being controlled by what your unrenewed mind has trained your body to do and it feels like you have no control

3.      People who are tormented with an evil desire have fed it and watched things they shouldn’t have watched, looked at things they shouldn’t look it, and the more you feed it the stronger it will get, but you can starve it and it will get weaker

B.     You can’t satisfy the lust of the flesh. What satisfied you today won’t satisfy you tomorrow; you’ll need more (Ezekiel 16:28-30)

1.      If you give in to the feed the flesh in a little area it will want more; You give it an inch it’ll want a mile

a.    The more you give it, the more it wants

C.    Cut off the supply to the flesh and it will get weaker

1.      The flesh/unrenewed nature is like and old cat

a.    If you feed it it’s going to come back for more and the more you feed it the bigger it gets

b.    If you stop feeding it, it’ll get weaker stop coming back

1)       To get rid of the flesh stop feeding it

2.      You got to make a decision that you’re going to starve the desires of the flesh so that they’ll  get weaker

a.    You don’t get to the place where you have this overwhelming desire and the flesh is controlling their life out of the blue overnight; You had to feed those lusts and desires for those to get strong in your life

D.    Who’s ever in control in your life, your spirit or flesh, is stronger.  So who’s in control?