The Best Defense against Sin is Offense against the Flesh (Edited by ChatGPT)

  

Why does God want us to declare His greatness, His holiness, His might, and His inevitable victory? It is because such declaration, when it is from the heart, will wire our brain in a way that affirms the nature of God, and it will be shown in our life and character.

 

What is funny about human beings — us — is that we join certain schools of thought, be it a certain denomination or some social science school of thought, and we end up thinking in a way that affirms the school of thought that we join. Take any new faithful and send him to any denomination, and after intensive training, the theology of that denomination becomes his second nature, and he will promote and defend it as universal truth. Why? Because they are rewired through intensive training and education to affirm the school of thought by people who are programmed by such a system in the first place. They learn history and it affirms it. Then they learn logic and it affirms it. They learn different courses and they affirm it, and finally the students affirm it.

 

If your mind is always fed about the greatness of God, the just nature of God, the holiness of God, and the perfection of God, this faith will be seen in your life, in your behavior, in your talk, and in general in who you are. That is why God advises us to be careful about what we see and listen to, because it will wire our mind. What we put in will build the temple of the Lord for God or a temple of abomination for evil. If our mouth always chants — and that is from the depth of the heart — about the greatness and goodness of God, it will be an abomination for us to take the Lord’s name and identity in vain.

 

But my focus is not on this general issue, but on how we can defend against sin and how we can minimize sin. We can directly defend ourselves against sin, say by avoiding all temptations, but sin will win over us one way or another. Because our mind is not rejecting sin, we are just shielding ourselves, and the devil will find a way to destroy us. Rather than fighting sin directly, however, it is better to grow in spirit by launching offense against the flesh.

 

Just imagine you spent days watching action movies and people offend you; you may resist sin once and twice, but at some point you will respond as such. If you spend more time on angry rap music, it may not make you a killer or thief, but it will mold your character in certain ways — say aggressiveness and the use of vulgar words — that will be shown out of you. What if you spend your time reading the Bible, praying, fasting, praising the Lord, and preaching the word of God? Since your mind is programmed for an extended period of time in the right way, it will not be easy to agitate you, and your behavior will show it. How you live is how you are wired, so be wired right.

 

Now we have to ask why people who are known for their spiritual growth commit great sin — say King David — and it will not be because they spent a long time in spiritual development, praising God, reading the good book, and serving God, but because they were drifting away from God, and its cumulative destiny is to end in those sins. Sins are symptoms of spiritual decay and drift, and the solution is spiritual revival.

 

This does not mean being very “spiritual” on the outside but more Jesus on the inside. Your spiritual circumcision is seen in your character, not when you break chairs and shout loudly. I am not in a position to tell God how He should work, though there are things I do not understand about God and the Holy Spirit specifically; but if you break chairs and you are still you, I am not sure it is the Holy Spirit who leads you. Show the fruit — that is, your transformation into the identity of the Lord — and I will not judge you seriously. There is the work of the Holy Spirit, there is copy-cut culture, and there is the work of the devil, and all are known by the word of God and by the fruit. Show the fruit, therefore.

In the Old Testament, God ordered that the faithful should write the law everywhere so they could always see it, and that they should think about it day and night while teaching it to their children. Even God said about Abraham that He was sure he would teach his children His ways, His laws, and His holiness when making promises to him. We are expected to be programmed and designed by the word of God, and that is when the word of God wires us, so we can know God and think the way God thinks. To think by the word of God and like God, what we feed ourselves should be the word of God, and it should grow us into the image of Jesus.

 

So the reason why we fail — and why the children of Jacob failed — is because we are distracted by the glitter out there, and we did not give adequate space in our heart to the Gold, which is the word of God. That is why, rather than sparking the Gold of God in our life, we dress in the glitter of the world. We invest in our flesh rather than in our spirit; as a result, we harvest death from it.

 

So you cannot win against sin by waging war on sin or by defending yourself against sin, but by growing into God. This is not a war of defense but offense, and the offense is not against sin but against the flesh, so it should be ruled by the Spirit.

 

Grow in love of God, and that should be reflected in how much of your life you give to God. Just imagine how much of your life is given to your children; now see the share of God in your life, and I am sure it is negligible. So grow toward God, to the level of love that God gives to you.

 

God gives you air to breathe, a body to function, a mind to think, muscles to work, rain for food, and spirit for your guidance. Everything you are and have belongs to God, and you live by His grace. To make it complete, He came and died to save you from sin and the devil. God showed His love to us by this much, and His love is now shown not only to those who love Him, but to us who used to hate Him and reject Him. Our mind should be preoccupied with how we can repay this God, and we do need to grow in it.

 

Now think: if your mind is occupied with your need to grow in love of God and problems happen in your life, can you imagine how you will react toward God? You will be thankful toward God while reminding God that you need help. Otherwise, who knows how you respond toward God? Look at how people react toward God and problems, and what is the problem? They did not have a proper relationship with God.

 

Even if you give some time, some resources, some energy, and some of whatever you have to God, if you know it is not comparable to what you give to your children and yourself — and it is incomparable to what God gives you — you will always be humble and apologetic before God. Otherwise, you may demand equal rights for your input.

 

Always remember: you don’t love God as much as He loved and cared for you, and you cannot serve God as much as He serves you. If your mind is preoccupied with such thought processes and you are growing in love of God, many sins will be alien to you. You will not be comfortable committing many sins, just as the thought of eating human flesh will make you vomit, because it is not natural to your mind. That is why you should not attack sin or defend yourself from sin, but grow toward God, and sin will be alien to you.

 

Now, if you understand your relationship with God from this angle, and God says to love one another among the faithful, would it be hard to love the faithful and be forgiving of their transgressions? The reason why we find it hard to love our fellow faithful is because we do not know God well enough to have a proper relationship with Him.

 

Our dysfunctional relationship with God is the reason why we have dysfunctional relationships with fellow faithful. The faithful are often not in the same stage of spiritual growth, and the children are more aggressive and even offensive. That is why Jesus was very careful to demand humility, unconditional love, forgiveness, taking the lower seat while serving the highest, and so on. Jesus was planting a winning strategy against the invasion of sin and the devil.

 

Say you are a prideful person and someone insults you in church; you will start a war, and the devil has cooked his destruction. If you turn the other cheek and love unconditionally, however, you will give people a chance to stabilize themselves and to know you better. If you respond with good and holy toward evil, you will disarm the devil. That is why, as long as Judas was around, Jesus insisted on humility but on love after his betrayal. When the devil and his forces are around and you are dealing with spiritually immature faithful, you need to go the extra mile to disarm the devil. That is by being built on the cornerstone and by following the Lord’s commandments.

 

But man of the flesh cannot do it. Yet, if you are born again, you need to let your spirit lead you. What you contemplate, live, and think should be the word of God, and specifically the commandments of the Lord. This is possible if you have a proper relationship with God and you are growing in love of God toward the identity of God. In this process, when you are trying to measure up to the level of God and trying hard to do so, turning the other cheek will not be hard, because it is not about you but God. You have no pride in yourself but in your knowledge of God, and all you do will be to impress this God. Would it be hard to turn the other cheek? The reason things are hard is that our relationship with God is wrong.

 

Besides, God in this age is framed as our battler. We speak words of faith and He makes it happen, and this is why we are not even afraid to question the authority of God in anything. I have listened to people saying they will debate God by the word of God if He is inconsistent with the word of God. Knowing God is God by the word of God, I have no arrogance to think I know more than God about anything. Why do we think as such? Because we are wired wrong. Yet, if we are wired right, loving enemies is not a problem. It grows naturally as we understand that God loved us when we were enemies, and He came to die for us.

 

So why do soldiers of God fall into sin? It is because they stop growing toward God and start sliding toward the flesh. At some point, this sliding process will expose itself in some major sin. In this process, there is one problem we need to be careful about: never tempt ourselves. Say we pray for days and we see a girl who dresses inappropriately, and we reject her outright as the wrong person. If we start planting minor temptations — which may not be sin at all at the start — they will grow toward sin. If we start thinking this or that about that girl, which may be an honest reflection at the start, it will grow toward sexual temptation. We should focus our mind on the right things. If we start thinking about money a lot, our mind will slowly grow toward money and money worship. Things grow. The best way to avoid sin is first spiritual growth and second to never plant small temptations in any form. Be focused and wired by the word of God.

 

If you grow in spirit and toward God, you don’t fight sin, but sin becomes unnatural to you. It is like some people eating certain food while others will vomit at the thought or sight of such food; it is all about how our mind is wired. If we are wired right, the world is not temptation — it is abomination. We will know that what is in the world is glitter and vicious delusion, but what we have is the real deal. We know God, we know the One who created all, who controls all, who manages all, and who judges all — and He is a holy God. What more glory can we ask? How many would be proud if some man of authority were their backer — what about God? Our pride is that we know God.

 

The reason why our faith becomes temptation is because our relationship with God is built on the wrong foundation. Some of us are declared saved and we live as we see fit, yet we are expected to grow. In this process, we can have a million reasons why we are just and others need to be managed by our wisdom and judgment. This is why our assemblies are centers of division and fights — because we are not dead. We are not faithful trying to impress God by obedience and our death to be led by the Spirit of God; we are the old self with a new tag.

 

So, before we can go right horizontally, we need to get right vertically. Victory is not by defense or offense against sin but by our offense against our flesh. If we are growing right, it will bear fruit, and our role is just obedience, as all the fruit is the work of the Holy Spirit if we obey. So let us grow from the flesh and the way of this earth toward the Spirit and the way of heaven.

 

If you want to win this world in the flesh — which means you are not a mature faithful — first hang your flesh and the world on the cross. Die to your flesh and to the world so they will be dead to you; then you will conquer them, because nobody can win the world but the born-again faithful who think by the heart of Jesus. If you are lucky enough, however, you will keep all your treasure in heaven and walk in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus, Paul, Peter, and John as one of the giants of heaven. You will not live for earthly comfort but for heavenly fruit, even at the cost of your life and comfort.

 

So what is the problem of Christianity? It does not grow us into the image of Jesus. There are many soldiers of God who follow the footsteps of Jesus to save souls and who live the life of Jesus. But when people are saved, they are not made in their image and the image of Jesus, but are given to church systems that grow them into some religious system. They show some transformation, maybe, and then they have religion, not life. That is why even the best of God are producing abomination for the faithful. What they are fed for life should be right, and at some point they have to turn into workers of God who learn on the job. But what we created is religion, and religion does not save.

When Peter and John preached the gospel, they did not even have money for the beggar, but they produced thousands of faithful in a few days, and those faithful took the gospel everywhere. Now we have people of glitter at the center, and we have to collect people toward them. You can imagine the cost, and faith as a result is becoming money-centered, and it is dangerous, as people with money will have more say in it. Yet it should be people-centered, and it should be about training soldiers who will train others, keeping the chain reaction forward like cancer cells invading the body.