FLESH,
NATURE OF

IT’S BEEN awhile now, but a popular television show aired years ago called Diff’rent Strokes. It was a rather funny show. It was about two little boys named Arnold and Willis. The boys’ mother had been the maid for a man named Mr. Drummond, but she died. Not wanting those boys to be left to meander and wander in the projects, he adopted them and brought them to live in his penthouse.

The whole show revolved around these two boys from the projects trying to learn how to live in the penthouse. Much comedy surrounded them bringing old ways into a new environment. There was great entertainment in seeing Mr. Drummond try to educate these young men in the finer things of their new environment. The question of the show was whether or not you could take boys out of the projects, put them in the penthouse, and expect them to leave the projects behind. The whole show was about how difficult it is for people to get rid of old patterns once they have been established.

When God found you and me, we were in the spiritual projects. He has now seated us in heavenly places. We are in the penthouse, but many of us have drug along with us a lot of the old patterns from the old neighborhood. Those patterns are called the flesh in the Bible. The flesh is not merely the body, but it is the body with its old patterns.310

[Flesh; New Life in Christ; Sin Nature, Residue of; Worldliness, Distraction of]

Rom. 5:12; 8:12–17; Heb. 12:1