I want to give you a little more insight into the development of the flesh and attempt to enable you to see more practically what it looks like. But first a little more definition. Langdon Gilkey has pointed out the chief characteristic of flesh as self-centeredness in his statement: “Self-centeredness is a loss of God at the center of the meaning and security of one’s life, as the ground of one’s trust and self-confidence. Therefore, the self is left alone, autonomous, self-sufficient, insecure and anxious, fearful for itself, its future fame and glory. Placing itself in the center of its world, making itself, or its group, its god, and thence follows its bondage to defend itself and its security against all comers.” This description of the flesh can be simplified to a precise definition of: the flesh is the condition of a person living life out of his or her own resources with or without seeking God’s help to do so.
Flesh is a condition of the personality living in agreement with sin. It’s a carry over from pre-conversion days consisting of habits, emotions, ideas and memories of how to live life. The society we live in doesn’t depend on the Lord, therefore it constantly gives input which teaches and affirms a way of living that’s only according to human resources. Again, simply stated flesh is our independent self-centered way of living. This way of living will always prove ineffective in the living of life. In fact, a good example of the ineffectiveness and sinfulness of fleshly living patterns is given by Jeremiah the prophet. In Jeremiah 2:13, the Lord speaks about His people forsaking Him and at the same time seeking their own ways to satisfy themselves. The Lord calls these ways “cisterns that are broken and cannot hold water.” They don’t work, therefore they don’t satisfy.
Why do people follow fleshly living patters if they’re sinful and ineffective? One reason is it’s the habit of always seeking to live life in your own resources. Ever since the Fall of Man in Genesis 3, independence rather than dependence on the Lord has been a characteristic of mankind. Even though it’s impossible to save ourselves, Christians often seek to live for the Lord in self-effort. Another reason we live out of fleshly living patterns is the drive to avoid hurt while seeking to meet our needs by using previously learned methods. And the truth is those methods may only be 10% effective, but to you they seem to be better than nothing. Many of God’s people have a false view of who they are and they live according to that view. And when you don’t know who you are according to God’s truth, you’ll live after the fleshly living patterns you have learned and developed. So, what are these fleshly living patterns like? I think you can get a better picture of how flesh patterns develop and work through a personal testimony.
I. A Personal Testimony
The testimony is shared: My relationship with my father growing up was typified by him telling me, “You can’t do anything right!” In fact, children are the world’s best recorders of information, but the worst interpreters of those MESSAGES. So I believed my father and grew up FEELING and BELIEVING I was INADEQUATE. My mother, on the other hand, was over protective AND the thing that typified our relationship was her telling me, “Let me do it for you.” Unfortunately, if Mom had to do it for me, that communicated to me that I couldn’t do it myself. This only served to underscore and reinforce the feeling that I was indeed INADEQUATE.
My Mom and Dad fought all the time and my worst childhood memory was that of lying in bed wondering if one of my parents was going to kill the other. As a result, I grew up feeling very INSECURE. I was the oldest and out-performed my brothers and sisters in most things. I was always the one in trouble and if something was done wrong, my parents came looking for me. Usually I was the culprit! As a result I grew up feeling GUILTY. At other times my parents would say to me, “Why can’t you be nice? Why can’t you do right? Why can’t you be good . . . like your brother and sister?” Now, added to all the other feelings I’ve described, was the feeling of INFERIORITY.
Inadequate, insecure, guilty, inferior! Still I had the need to be loved and accepted, to have worth and value. And so I began to develop flesh patterns to live with, to cope with life, to be a success, to protect myself from hurt and rejection, to escape intolerable situations. So one flesh pattern I developed was IRRESPONSIBILITY. My mom didn’t let me experience the consequences of my wrong behavior so I didn’t learn to take responsibility for them. Another flesh pattern was to PROCRASTINATE. Remember, I felt inadequate and I believed I was a failure, so I kept putting things off to delay the inevitable failure. If that didn’t work, then I could always QUIT.
In addition to the irresponsibility and procrastination I also became MATERIALISTIC at a very early age. Most of my close friends came from wealthy families and it just seemed like money solved a lot of problems. My friends had nicer things, nicer clothes, houses, baseball gloves, cars, etc., and with the money there seemed to come social graces needed to relate to the opposite sex. After college, my goal in life was to make a lot of money. I became a stockbroker and began to make some money. I became DRIVEN TO SUCCEED. This was how I was finding my life and my identity, my sense of worth and value as well as love and acceptance. Later, I developed another flesh pattern called ALCOHOLISM. I remember the first time I was drunk. It was the night after I graduated from high school and it was life-changing for me, negatively that is. Remember, flesh patterns do something for you. Well, the effects of alcohol did something for me. It allowed me to rise above my overwhelming self-consciousness. It allowed me to overcome, at least temporarily my feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, guilt, and inferiority and relate to girls and be “one of the guys.” I was addicted by age 18 and would struggle with the addiction for the next 32 years. There were many years I didn’t actually drink. However, I was not free until I learned who I was in Christ.
I would AVOID INTIMACY with people because I didn’t want anyone to get too close and find out that I felt inadequate, insecure, guilty and inferior. When I became a Christian there was no dramatic and radical change in my life. I went to seminary and became a pastor. Unfortunately, all I did was “Christianize” my primary flesh pattern of being driven to succeed. I was attempting to get my needs met by succeeding as a pastor and building a successful church. When that didn’t happen, I found myself angry and disillusioned.
II. Personalizing The Flesh
Now, most of the flesh patterns described in the testimony of that pastor are unattractive. We might call them “negatively programmed flesh.” The fact is though, we all have our own unique brand of flesh. And many people develop “positively programmed flesh.” They have attractive flesh patterns such as high work ethics, self-discipline, diligence and the ability to abide by law. I don’t mean to say that these traits are wrong in themselves. However, anything that you do to meet your needs, find life and identity, cope or succeed in life apart from looking to God is a flesh pattern.
The truth is, anything, even “good” things, like preaching, witnessing, going to church, being the best father, mother, husband or wife can be flesh patterns if you’re using them to meet your needs for love and acceptance, worth and value, to find life and identity apart from God. There are many besetting sins and life-changing problems with which people struggle. As a result, many are robbed of their joy. Almost without exception these patterns of behavior are deeply ingrained. The PERFECTIONIST has learned that to be accepted and have value he must do everything perfectly. It’s not that something out of place is really that terrible, but rather that for the perfectionist, to be “okay,” everything must be in place. A woman struggles with ANOREXIA and BULIMIA. She “learned” growing up that to be accepted socially, to have boyfriends and to succeed in life she must be thin. Another person may struggle with CO-DEPENDENCY, having learned that to be “okay” you must always appear “helpful” and solve problems for others. Still others become PEOPLE PLEASERS, constantly performing for others in order to gain acceptance.
Many in our society confess to and even brag about being WORKAHOLICS. Most, if not all, grew up feeling inadequate and insecure. They’re trying to prove to themselves and to others that they’re not. They’ve discovered that although they feel terribly inadequate and insecure they’re able to perform adequately and gain some degree of acceptance through their work. Most, however, live their lives in fear of failure and often sacrifice family, health, convictions and everything else in an attempt to “prove” themselves.
You see, this is how flesh patterns develop. In essence, there are MESSAGES you receive about yourself from Dad, Mom, Grandparents, Sibblings, Significant Others. You internalize those messages & they lead you to feel and think about yourself in certain ways as I’ve described: inadequate, insecure, guilty, inferior, etc. So you can identify FEELINGS as a result of those messages you have received and out of those feelings you develop BELIEFS. In turn, you’re then motivated by those feelings and beliefs to build protective layers which become your flesh patterns by which you cope with life, use defense mechanisms, seek to survive or escape or protect yourself from hurt or rejection or you seek to succeed.
In all that I have said, you may have heard some things that feel familiar to you. You may have touched on some of your own flesh patterns. The real question is though – “Where do you find life?” Paul said in Philippians 1:21, “For me to live is Christ.” Jesus Christ desires to be your life. God wants you to know that you are love and accepted in the Beloved. He wants you to know that you are of ultimate and eternal worth and value as His adopted child. He wants you to call upon Him as “Abba,” Father, Daddy in dependence upon Him for your every need.
(This message was developed from a study of Chapter 6 in “The Grace Life Handbook edited by Scott Brittin and Barry Grecu pages 62-74)
