{"id":16313,"date":"2026-10-03T15:39:54","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T20:39:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/?p=16313"},"modified":"2026-10-06T15:59:48","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T20:59:48","slug":"the-dangers-of-a-carnal-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/16313\/the-dangers-of-a-carnal-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dangers of a Carnal Mind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pastor John,<\/span><\/p>\n

This latest Blog is so good!\u00a0 Ben and I just finished a wonderful conversation after reading this blog and I wanted to share.\u00a0 I was telling Ben what I have heard you say many times that when you receive the holy Ghost, it\u2019s like being nailed to the cross. You\u2019ve told us that even though you may be nailed to the cross, that flesh is not willing to give up so easily.\u00a0 And there have even been some who survived the cross after they were taken down.\u00a0 You\u00a0have told us that we must let that flesh (our carnal mind) die!\u00a0 And how many times when praying for us, have you laid hands on us and exhorted us to, \u201cLet Him Live!\u201d \u00a0 I told Ben that we have two choices: \u00a0we can feed the flesh or we can feed the Spirit.\u00a0 How do we feed the flesh?\u00a0 It boils down to how we spend our free time: \u00a0What we watch, what we listen to, what we read, where we go, who we spend time around.\u00a0 Are we feeding our flesh by mostly doing those things that our old carnal nature always loved, or are we feeding our Spirit by \u201ctaking time to be holy\u201d.\u00a0 We have the choice.\u00a0 Are we going to feed the flesh and starve the Spirit, or will we starve the flesh and feed the Spirit?\u00a0 Only by feeding our Spirit, will we be able to develop the mind of Christ and have the strength we need to overcome this world. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was so encouraging to read this line at the end of the blog, \u201cBut if we live according to the Spirit, even the weakest of us will overcome the world<\/u>\u201d.\u00a0 That says to me that anyone with the spirit of God<\/u>\u00a0can overcome this world, no matter how weak he may feel.\u00a0 We may be weak, but He is strong <\/u>so let\u2019s let Him<\/u> live!<\/span><\/p>\n

Hurry home, we all miss you!!<\/span><\/p>\n

Lee Ann<\/span><\/p>\n

==========<\/span><\/p>\n

The Danger of a Carnal Mind<\/span><\/p>\n

Immediately, while he was yet speaking, Judas appeared, who was one of the twelve, and with him a large multitude with swords and clubs sent by the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders. Now, the one who betrayed him had given them a cue, saying, \u201cWhoever I kiss is the man.\u00a0 Arrest him, and lead him away under guard.\u201d\u00a0 And when he had come, he went up at once to him, and said to him, \u201cO Rabbi!\u00a0 Rabbi!\u201d\u00a0 And he kissed him affectionately.\u00a0 Then they laid their hands on him and arrested him. . . .\u00a0 And then Jesus answered and said to them, \u201cDid you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture me?\u00a0 I was with you every day, teaching in the temple, and you didn\u2019t arrest me.\u00a0 But this has happened so that the scriptures might be fulfilled.\u201d\u00a0 And then they all forsook him and fled. Mark 14:43\u201346, 48\u201350<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0God sent His Son to the best people on earth, Israel, whom He had chosen and blessed with His law and with His prophets.\u00a0 They were the best people, not because they were in themselves better than others, but because God had given them His law and His prophets to prepare them for the coming of His Son, their Messiah.\u00a0 No other nation was even close to being prepared for the Son because no other nation had been given the blessings that God had given to Israel.\u00a0 Had God sent His Son to any other nation on earth, the people there would have ridiculed him more viciously, abused him cruelly, and killed him much sooner than the Jews did.\u00a0 Jesus survived as long as he did in Israel only because the human nature in Israelites had been tamed, to an extent, even within those who did not honor God\u2019s law and prophets.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Paul listed some of God\u2019s blessings on Israel in his letter to Roman believers:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Romans 9:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. There have even been times I prayed to be accursed from Christ for my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh,<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. who are the Israelites, whose are the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service \u00a0\u00a0of God, and the promises,<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. whose are the fathers, and from whom, according to the flesh, is Christ, who is above all.\u00a0 God be blessed forever.\u00a0 Amen.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Bible makes it very clear that most of the people in Israel failed to take advantage of those blessings and be prepared for the Son.\u00a0 But some did; some were thankful for God\u2019s mercy, and they obeyed His law and believed His prophets.\u00a0 Jesus\u2019 disciples were among them.\u00a0 They were among the best of the best.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 At the same time, before the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, the disciples were without the Spirit (Jn. 14:17) and were still carnally minded.\u00a0 They still had hope for a worldly kingdom (cf. Acts 1:6), and sometimes, even during the Last Supper, they bickered over who would occupy the most exalted offices in that kingdom (Lk. 22:24).\u00a0 They were still, as Paul would later say it, \u201cin the flesh\u201d, instead of in the Spirit.\u00a0 That is why in the Garden of Gethsemane, \u201cthey all forsook him and fled.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The disciples had done very well to stay with Jesus until they arrested him at Gethsemane; they did the best that carnally minded men could do.\u00a0 Nobody on earth could have done any better.\u00a0 But they needed more power than they possessed at that time to go with Jesus all the way to the cross.\u00a0 That is the point that we do not want to miss.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The best that any of us can do as long as we have a carnal mind is to make it to the garden with Jesus; we cannot go all the way with him to the cross.\u00a0 The disciples loved Jesus, but they loved their own lives more.\u00a0 They feared God, but when the hardest trial came, they feared men more and forsook Jesus and fled quickly into the night.\u00a0 Jesus kept his disciples from falling as long as he was with them; he said so in his prayer to the Father at the Last Supper: \u201cWhile I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name.\u00a0 Those you gave me, I watched over, and not one of them has been lost except the son of damnation so that the scripture might be fulfilled\u201d (Jn 17:12).\u00a0 But Jesus could not keep them from deserting him in the end.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t have the spiritual strength to go with him all the way, and there was nothing Jesus could do to change that except to die for them and offer himself to God as a sacrifice for their sin so that God would give them the same strength He had given to Jesus.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 David was moved by the Spirit to say that man, even in his very best state, is altogether vanity (Ps. 39:5).\u00a0 The disciples proved how true that was when they forsook the Holy One they loved in order to save their own skin.\u00a0 But Jesus was not surprised or disappointed.\u00a0 He knew that even the best of the best people on earth could not go with him all the way to the cross and that they would desert him.\u00a0 Human nature cannot go all the way with Jesus.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In 1981, Jesus taught me that our greatest enemy is not Satan; it is our natural, carnal mind that does not and cannot know God or please Him.\u00a0 The natural, carnal mind with which we were born is more than just a hindrance to us; it is deadly.\u00a0 It is not just different from God\u2019s ways and thoughts; it is contrary to them. \u00a0\u201cThe flesh [that is, our fleshly nature] desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is contrary to the flesh.\u00a0 These are opposed to one another,\u201d Paul said.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If we who have the Spirit fail to develop the mind of Christ that is in the Spirit, if we remain carnally minded even after being given the Spirit, we may never see the face of God.\u00a0\u00a0 Even the best of us will come short of the glory of God if we continue to think and live according to our fleshly nature after being made new creatures in Christ, partakers of God\u2019s divine nature.\u00a0 But if we live according to the Spirit, even the weakest of us will overcome the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My friend, your night with Jesus in the garden surrounded by an angry mob is coming.\u00a0 Pray to escape your carnal mind, for the carnal mind will cause you to make the wrong choice, to forsake Jesus \u2013 and it will justify you for doing it \u2013 so that you, like his carnally minded disciples, flee into the darkness.\u00a0 No, our greatest enemy is not Satan; it is our own carnal nature, the old us that was without hope and without God in this world.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Pastor John, This latest Blog is so good!\u00a0 Ben and I just finished a wonderful conversation after reading this blog and I wanted to share.\u00a0 I was telling Ben what I have heard you say many times that when you receive the holy Ghost, it\u2019s like being nailed to the cross. You\u2019ve told us that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-netmail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16313"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16313"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16317,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16313\/revisions\/16317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}