Our Great Stumbling Block

August 26

Most of us don’t wish to bear a cross of any sort. We want life to be filled with ease and plenty. We want our labor to result in great reward and we want our efforts to be recognized and esteemed. If we were in charge of life, there would never be a challenge to threaten the attainment of our desired goals.

If we are honest with ourselves, we will acknowledge that ‘the flesh’ is very important to us. We know that we are not to consume ourselves with what we eat or where we live or what we wear, but honesty demands that we acknowledge our preoccupation with these very temporal things.

The Word states clearly that, “The one who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life” Galatians 6:8. But, for the most part, we are indifferent to that reality. We want to sow to the flesh and we want the comforts for our flesh that result from doing so.

We are rather like Wimpy in the Popeye saga whose philosophy was, ‘I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.’ If there is a cost to our fleshly preoccupation, it cannot be too high if our wants and desires are satisfied. We gladly defer eternal life in order to glean the rewards of the world. Our flesh is our great stumbling block.