The carnal mind. I was thinking about that today as I was working on my shop. (I’m finally getting to build my shop on this land we purchased --- Wooo hooo!!) Any way, so much of the teaching today in churches springs from carnal understanding of scripture. I was thinking specifically of the “prosperity gospel” in that scripture does say we are “overcomers” and “children of the King”. But Christ is not King of this world just yet. We are over comers in the spiritual realm but not necessarily in this present physical world.
Well, the idea that prosperity has got to mean $$ is a mistake. That sort of prosperity gospel is nonsense. But there is prosperity in terms of blessings of all kinds and the capability to see and enjoy the blessings. Billionaires can be bored, and the man with $5 to his name can be content.
Also, I sometimes reflect on how carnal minds got carnal. I believe it truly was through consensually sharing the experience with Adam and Eve, on some pre-incarnate plane that the bible doesn’t spell out, and doesn’t need to. Maybe if it did, we’d get all lost in mysticism trying to figure it out ourselves. Anyhow, we’ve bowed to evil, brutal spirits that make illusory boasts against the Lord that they can never make lasting. The way it plays out in this world, we call it carnal. The question God has offered us now is whether to allow Him to rid us of their dominion, and the process for that involves suffering. But He, too, suffers, and heroically at that. God isn’t aloof from any one of us; it’s a matter of each of us being more or less blind.