The first time I read this passage, my thoughts, because I’m a geek, went to one of the main sources of geek wisdom: Yoda. When he is training Luke, his student, he says, “Luminous beings are we; not this crude matter.” A large part of Luke’s training is about learning to move beyond the limitations of his flesh and body and embrace the power of the Spirit. This is a perfect metaphor for our struggle as Christians. When we focus on our bodies and what the flesh can or cannot do, we are limited. We are dead. When we embrace God and his Spirit and put that first, we come alive.
I began to think of the time when I set out on my own and believed that I could make it by myself. I was in college with no one expecting me to be at church and plenty of people questioning my faith. I had it all under control. I knew what I was doing. I focused on me. I wanted to sleep in. I wanted to hang out with friends. I wanted to eat breakfast and hang out for three hours in the cafeteria. My faith was discussed and defended as an academic curiosity. Then I got a test with no paper or answer key. I reached a point when I needed strength of spirit and did not have it. I had a church but had never fully committed. I was still focused on body before spirit, on me before Him. Then I turned that focus around and found the strength I needed. The more I focused on Him first, the more confident I felt about any test given.
Verses 9 - 11 remind us that if we nourish only our bodily wants and needs, we are dead, but if we focus on the Spirit, not only will our spirit be alive, but our body, as well. We spend so much of our lives being bombarded by things from the material world. There are so many things that pull our focus away from the Spirit of God in this selfish society. It is a struggle sometimes to think about what will serve him before what will serve us. We are promised, though, that if we do focus on Him first, He will take care of us completely.
Written by Dan Treharne
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