Good morning and welcome to another day’s podcast. I hope you survived Monday and are feeling fresh for the day ahead.

REFLECTION:

Today’s reading is John 6:60-7:13. I am going to focus on v 63-64

“The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.”

Yesterday we looked at two words – flesh and blood – and we talked about how we are transformed by consuming Jesus, the living word of God, and God’s grace.

I don’t know about you but I am a work in progress. I read my Bible and pray and I try to live a life consistent with what God is speaking to me about – I try to consume him and I believe that Jesus died for me and through his death I have direct access to God – I have an understanding of God’s grace. And yet…

Last night I was tired. I was cooking and it wasn’t going according to plan. I was stressed and tired and I snapped at my wife and my daughter. Not their fault, entirely mine.

And then last week I had a moment in ministry when I experienced a big, personal win, I smashed it out of the park. But deep inside I thought “this is too good to be true” and I was waiting, expecting, almost demanding for the moment that proved that it was a one off, that it was an accident and that I am not worthy to be used by God in that way. In my head I know it’s all about Jesus and his grace and not at all dependent on me but in my heart I can get all mixed up and believe that I’m not good enough and this shouldn’t be happening to me.

Why?

Why do I do the things that I do?

I didn’t sit in the kitchen and decide to be snappy with Helen and Faith. Something in me reacted to the circumstances that I found myself in. I went against my belief about how I should act and react and operated on instinct, autopilot… it was a glimpse of my subconscious erupting to the surface.

I firmly believe that Jesus wants to transform us as the song goes… “from the inside out”

Jesus said, “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.”

And Paul wrote in Romans 8, Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.

Two passages about the Spirit and the flesh…

‘The flesh’ is short hand for our desires and our pre-programmed responses… ‘The flesh’ is doing what I want, when I want, how I want… it’s all about me. It’s the toddler in me that sees a toy across the room and pushes everyone and everything out of the way to get it … It’s mine, I want it.

And, ‘the flesh’ is our pre-programmed, automatic response to what is going on around us. If you have learnt to drive you will know that shift from having to consciously remember to do everything while learning, to that moment when we arrive at our destination not quite sure how we got there because driving has become an automatic response to the world around us. Our flesh has been programmed to the extent that we don’t need to think, we just do it automatically.

The flesh, our desires and our pre-programming, can dictate our actions.

Or we can choose to be led by the spirit.

The truth is that all of us sit somewhere in between. So… today, will our flesh, or the spirit be in the driving seat of our lives?

“The spirit gives life… the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life.”

Do we trust our feelings or do we trust the words of Jesus? Or are we on autopilot feeling like we cannot change? Do we do just what we feel like doing, or do we trust that Jesus has the very best for us… Do we see what we want and chase after it with all we have ...