Dead to self

Galatians 5:24 "And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts."

When accepting Jesus in our hearts, it did not mean temptation was over. Salvation is confessing and believing. Sanctification is living out what you profess and believe. Our salvation means nothing if like Kim said, there is no visible fruit from God. The writer encourages us, the church, to basically be more like God. He talks about the fruit of The Spirit so that we know what characteristics we should have being born again in which Kim has previously discussed. Now after the writer stated what The Fruit were, he then concluded that if we are apart of Christ we WILL crucify our flesh. What is crucifying our flesh? Well, it is to me not feeding it. If I am feeding my spiritual man by planting God's Word on good soil(Luke 8:5-15) His Word will then take root and His Fruit will produce in my life. However, if I choose not to allow God to plant His Word and feed my flesh I will reap my harvest( Galatians 6:8). Crucifying our flesh is hard for us, but easy for our God. God will never tell us to do something without equipping us to do so. The verse says that if we belong to Jesus we WILL crucify our flesh WITH the affections and lusts. Now, we are home. So, for clarity let me just go ahead and say no one is perfect because people use that time and time again in the wrong context. Yes, no one is perfect, BUT God is and HE is able to perfect our imperfections not us. So saying we are unable to seriously live holy as God commanded is false. There are plenty couples abstaining until they marry, plenty of young people choosing not to get drunk, smoke, go to wild parties, lie, cheat, and the list goes on. This is an important scripture because not only will someone know us by our love that we are God's, but by us having self control. Which is what? One of the Fruit we should bear. I believe it is temperance in The Bible. So it states our flesh with its lusts and affections, something we ALL have. I do not care how sanctified you are we all share this struggle. Your struggle may not be my struggle as far as certain lusts or affections, but we all have to crucify some things. I have to crucify sexual lusts, you may have to crucify lusts for things. Sally may have to crucify lusts for food. Yeah, gluttony is a sin. Some may have ungodly affections that needs to be crucified. Whatever the case may be we all have that to deal with daily. So, how do we crucify our flesh with the lusts and affections it carries? We starve it! Just as The Bible states to give no place to the devil we should not feed our fleshly desires. If mom said do not eat the cookie because it will spoil our appetite, we listened and if we disobeyed we got our punishment. Same for God, He warns us about sin and when we do not listen it will spoil our spiritual appetite and our fellowship with God and we will receive our punishment. Even naturally, we rather our parents to be proud than disappointed and always punishing us and that is the same outlook we should have towards our Heavenly Father. We should strive to please Him and with doing so our flesh will die more and more each day. No, it does not stop temptation, but God will ALWAYS provide an escape(1 Cor. 10:13) so there is absolutely no excuse for us. We make things hard when it really isn't and if we have the mindset and heart to do right than we will, but if we go in thinking it is impossible to live right then we will not. Again, people will know that we are saved by us living like we are saved and not according to our flesh. I'm going to end with this scripture. It is essential to crucifying our flesh. Romans 12:2 "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."