«　WEEK 5　DAY 6　»

　　Gal. 5:24-25 But they who are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and its lusts. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.

　　16 But I say, Walk by the Spirit and you shall by no means fulfill the lust of the flesh.

　　We should be warned by this account of Saul’s disobedience not to do anything in the kingdom of God by our flesh. We need to fear God and remember that we are flesh. But the Son of God has crucified the flesh, and He has come into us to regenerate our spirit. Now He is living in our spirit, moving, acting, and taking the lead to guide us into the line of life for the building up of His organism, the Body of Christ. This is the kingdom of God, God’s eternal kingdom, which will consummate in the upcoming New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth. This should be our goal. We should not try to build a monarchy for ourselves in God’s kingdom.

　　We thank the Lord that, under His mercy, He has opened up the intrinsic secrets in the Word to show us the real lessons. We have to learn the lesson of the cross and crucify our flesh with its passions and its lusts and leave it on the cross always and in everything (Gal. 5:24). We should faithfully exercise our spirit to follow the Lord, who is the life-giving, consummated Spirit indwelling our spirit and who is one with us. Then the kingdom of God, the church as the intrinsic Body of Christ, will be built up. (Life-study of 1 & 2 Samuel, pp. 76-77)

　　The flesh is not only versus grace, but…it is also versus kingship. For this reason, the flesh must be thoroughly dealt with before the kingdom of God can come. Where the flesh is, there can be no kingdom of God. Only when the flesh is dealt with is it possible for the kingdom to come.

　　In Romans 8:7 Paul says that it is not possible for the flesh to be subject to God. The kingdom of God denotes the authority of God by which all things are made subject to God. But it is not possible for the flesh to be subject to God. It is utterly opposed to God’s throne.

　　The more we are subject to God and His authority, the greater will be our desire to pray. When we rebel against God and reject His authority, our appetite for prayer disappears…. Our attitude should be to say, “Lord, I don’t want to do anything without You. I need You as my grace. The flesh is simply myself doing things apart from You. I don’t want to live without You as my grace.” We all need to pray with such a spirit.

　　In Exodus 18 we have a type, a portrait, of the kingdom of God. The fact that this portrait is presented after the war against Amalek indicates that when Amalek is dealt with, the kingdom with the kingship immediately comes in. This also indicates that Amalek is versus kingship.

　　Experientially, we treasure the good aspects of our natural life, our natural virtue, for example, and do not wish to destroy them. We all treasure the good points of our flesh. All of us are Sauls. When we are charged by God to destroy the flesh, we destroy the negative things, such as our temper. But few are willing to destroy the good aspects of the natural life…. However, we should be encouraged by the fact that the Lord is still working on us and within us.

　　We need an intense light to shine upon us to show us that whatever we are in the natural life is Amalek. The Amalek within us must be utterly destroyed. We should not take any excuse for sparing any aspect of the Amalek within us. Do not excuse your failure to utterly destroy the flesh. Do not say that you have a particular habit and cannot do anything about it. The claim that you cannot destroy it is a lie. If we would follow the Lord’s word to utterly destroy the flesh, we shall have the kingship and shall be in God’s kingdom. May the Lord have mercy on us that we learn what the flesh is and how to deal with it utterly. (Life-study of Exodus, pp. 557-562, 564)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Exodus, msgs. 48-49