Carnality means fleshly. Being carnal is being fleshly or worldly and this is a rebellion to God. Rom: 8:6: For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
How does one become carnally minded?
We are a trinity; the body, the spirit and the soul. (More in the moving hand not attached to body touching me). There are two spirits fighting to control the soul: the Holy Spirit and the evil spirit (more on them in the significance of Noah’s ark window). Controlling the soul is controlling the body; the soul is the one which controls the body. The body just obeys the soul demands thus acts according to what the soul dictates.
For those people who the Holy Spirit have domination over the evil spirit, the Holy Spirit takes control of their souls and then the body and we have power over the evil spirit. Being born again does not mean that the evil spirit will not fight to have you, but those born-again people are the prime targets of the devil. Gal 5:17: For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other.
He will always be dictating and commanding you and me to do fleshly worldly acts but since we have allowed the Holy Spirit to have dominion over the evil spirit, we will only act according to God’s commands. The big mistake many Christians make is giving the evil spirit space, listening to his voice and doing according to what he says but not to what the Holy Spirit is dictating.
And at this time many of us go against God command and fall terribly into sin. Those people born again have been delivered from the flesh by Jesus on the cross and sin has no dominion over them. They just need to repent and all their sins are forgiven and forgotten. They are not captives of the world and they live life knowing they are in wilderness heading to the Promised Land.
But when the evil spirit dominates more than the Holy Spirit, the evil spirit takes control of the soul and then the body. He makes a person be a slave to sin. Thus you find yourself only thinking of how to please the body. What to eat, what to drink, what do dress, how to give the body pleasure, happiness, where to find it etc. You think only of worldly stuff and things, and man actions are determined by his/her thoughts. Whatever the mind thinks, the body just follows to do what the soul says and this is carnality.
Gal 5:19-21: Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envying, murders, drunkenness, reveling, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. 1Cor 3:3: For you are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
How man falls to sin
Devil knows that the only way to man is first through his soul then body. This is the strategy he used to make the first man fall into sin. He first played around with Eve’s mind for Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. Gen 3:1: Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. And the serpent said unto the woman, You shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
After Satan took control of Eve’s soul, Eve saw the fruit was good for food. Gen 3:6: And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. Food only goes to the body not to the soul or spirit so Satan made Eve do what was not right.
Satan used these words to Eve. For God does know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil (Gen 3:5). The eyes are in the body and the irony is that by opening the bodily eyes you open your eyes to devils perversion but by opening your spiritual eyes, you open your eyes to see and experience Jesus Christ.
The eyes are the roots of all sin as seen in the three things in the world leading to hell. If you let your eyes see evil, you have opened yourself up to be taken over by evil spirit. If you open your eyes to see Christ, truly you will see and experience Him. Jesus said, ‘the light of the body is the eye: if therefore your eye be single, you whole body shall be full of light’ (Mt: 6:22). A single eye only sees Christ Jesus (good) and a double eye sees both good and evil. Before falling to sin, the eyes of Adam and eve only saw good and they were full of light, but after falling they got double eyes knew good and evil (Gen 3:5).
When you are a believer, the Holy Spirit dwells in you and any carnality cannot be found in you. Rom: 8:9: But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. It is until we move from carnality, be spiritual as seen in the three types of men that we please God. Rom 8:8, 9:8: So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. For if you live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God.
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