The Spiritual Man

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Desire
Desire Occupies the largest part of our emotional
life: it joins forces with our will to rebel against God’s
will. Our innumerable desires create such confused
feelings in us that we cannot quietly follow the spirit.
They arouse our feelings and make for many turbulent
experiences. Before one is set free from the power of sin his desire
unites with sin in making him love sin and in depriving the new man
of his freedom. After he is liberated from sin’s outward
manifestations the same desire drives him to seek for himself many
things outside God. And while a person is still in the emotional state
he is controlled mainly by his desire. Not until the cross has
performed its deeper work and one’s desire has been judged in the
light of the cross can he wholly live in the spirit and for God.
When a Christian remains carnal he is ruled vigorously by his
desire. All natural or soulish desires and ambitions are linked with
self life. They are for self, by self, or after self. While carnal, one’s
will is not yielded fully to the Lord, and so he holds many ideas of
his own. His desire then works together with his ideas to make him
delight in what he wills to have and to expect to have his own ideas
realized. All self-delight, self-glory, self-exaltation, self-love, self-
pity and self-importance issue from man’s desire and render self the
center of everything. Can we conjure up anything man himself
desires which is not linked to something of self? If we examine
ourselves in the light of the Lord we shall see that all our aspirations,
no matter how noble, cannot escape the bounds of self. All are for it!
If they are not self-pleasing, then they are self-glorifying. How can a
Christian live in the spirit if he is engulfed in such a condition?