Flesh Versus ... Service?

Disobedience yesterday breeds self-centeredness today without a gospel reorientation. Disobedience breeds contempt, hatred, and apathy with such virility that I find it almost impossible to serve others when I am living in any type of perpetual sin. This verse in I Timothy helps to explain it, “But she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives.” Though it’s written about widows in particular, I think that it points to the grave temptation to self-indulgence that those of us who live alone (or who tend to be introverts) will face. I find this to be one of the primary ways that I am rendered useless in serving the body. Galatians 5:13-14 says, "For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Paul Tripp writes, "The passage is particularly helpful because it tells us that the opposite of serving in love is not a lack of love and a lack of service, but an active indulging of the sinful nature! Either I am living as a servant of the Lord and accepting His call to serve those around me or I am living to gratify the cravings of the sinful nature and expecting others to satisfy those cravings as well" (“Speaking Redemptively” The Journal of Biblical Counseling, Vol. 16:3).

I am spending some time praying through where I am indulging the flesh, though some of these areas require little illumination. I don't just want victory over my sin so that my life will run more smoothly. I want a victory that enables me to live and to serve as a testimony to Christ's power over sin and death. I don't want a victory that improves me; I want a victory that transforms me.

But this means that I must be...transformed (which sounds painful). Father, enable me to recieve with meekness the implanted word which is able to save my soul" (James 1:21). Teach me what it means to look not only to my own interests but also to the interests of others. I don't do it naturally, even with the people I love the most, and I can't do it on my own. Help me to walk tomorrow in obedience and service--all to your glory. Amen.