Jesus noted that his followers were to be no part of the world, but of course this did not mean that they were to be physically removed from it. (Joh. 17:5)  James warned: “Friendship with the world is enmity with God.”  (Jam. 4:4)  Therefore we recognize that if we are to be servants of God and Christ, we must be different than those in the world.  We must not allow ourselves to carry on a worldly way of life.

The apostle Paul properly spoke about various worldly activities, identifying them as “the works of the flesh.” (Gal. 5:19)  Today, many of these “works” are considered normal, and in fact some of these works are actually encouraged by certain individuals!  What are these works and what is the consequence of them?  Note Paul’s words.

“Now the works of the flesh are clearly revealed, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lustfulness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, fightings, jealousies, angers, rivalries, divisions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and things like these; of which I tell you beforehand, as I also said before, that the ones practicing such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Gal. 5:19-21)

It is amazing that more than a few individuals within the world would actually encourage some of these activities.  An example of this would be fornication, which is sex outside of marriage.  Many view such sexual relations as something to be had as often as possible.  Similarly, drunkenness is at times encouraged, where friends look to “party” with each other, intending to do nothing more than become drunk.   

Of course not all of these are acceptable practices by even worldly standards, but whether or not the world accepts them is not the issue.  The issue is God’s view of these activities, and because “the ones practicing such things will not inherit the kingdom of God,” we recognize that he does not look upon them well.

Recognizing the negative view taken by God with respect to these things, how can we avoid practicing them?  Some of them, such as murder, are simple to avoid.  However, others such as fornication, drunkenness, jealousies and angers can be more difficult.  To avoid them, we must be on guard.

James, in writing his epistle, explained how sins such as these occur.  In understanding how such sins come about we learn what to be on guard against, and then we can come to see how we can stop the process before the sin occurs.

James 1:14  But each one is tempted by his own desires, being drawn out and being seduced by them.  15  Then having conceived desire brings forth sin. And sin being fully formed brings forth death.  

Sin begins with a simple desire.  We desire to have something or do something that we should not do.  The desire itself is not the sin, but what can come from the desire is sin.  To stop sin from coming from such a desire we must act quickly.  We must turn our attention away from the desire, rather than to follow our fleshly inclination to focus on it. 

To understand how we must act when a negative desire comes into our mind, let us illustrate by means of food. For a moment, consider your favorite food.  Think about the taste of it.  Remember how it smells and think about how it felt to eat it.  It is your favorite food.  Chances are that you have eaten it many times.  If you go without it for an extended period of time you may even begin to crave it.  

Now let us say that you suddenly developed a serious allergy to that food.  Your doctor explained to you that if you ever ate that food again you would die.  What would you do?  You might find the answer obvious and say that you would never eat it again, but is it that simple?  If you developed a craving for it, would you maybe open a cook book and look at the recipe and pictures of the dish?  Might you even cook the dish to simply smell it?  You might laugh at these ideas, but they are quite serious.  If you were to do these things you might cultivate the desire within yourself to eat the food.  If you did that, you would die.

Again though, this might be something that you consider laughable.  If you developed a severe allergy to a food you would simply avoid it.  Yet, with the works of the flesh, what would you do?  Would you expose yourself to various things that would cultivate the desire?  Would you dwell on the desire, exposing yourself to various things that would only make the desire stronger?

To avoid the works of the flesh we must do everything we can to stop the desires that lead to sin before they produce such works.  We may desire certain things and in that moment those things may seem good, but we must remember that “the heart is deceitful.” (Jer. 17:9)  We must test our desires, comparing them to God’s word to determine whether or not they are proper.  In testing these desires we would want to follow his printed word and any direction that the Holy Spirit might provide.  If we neglect the direction he is giving through the Spirit we might become guilty of “grieving” it. (Eph. 4:30)

It is unfortunate that so many do not treat the works of the flesh as seriously as they would the eating of a food to which a deadly allergy had been developed.  Perhaps it is the immediate consequence of their action that would make the avoiding of such food more serious to them, or maybe there is a lack of faith on the part of the individual, not fully accepting the truth of what Paul said.  Whatever the case might be, the reality is that the works of the flesh are much more serious than the eating of such a food. 

Jesus counseled his followers not to worry about those who could kill them today, but to worry about him who could kill both their body and soul. (Matt. 10:28)  His point was that it should be our future life that we are concerned with, not this present temporary life.  This is not to say that we should abuse our current body, for that would be disrespectful to the life that God has given us by which we serve him.  If we are in a good standing before God when we die our soul remains alive to him because he will see to it that we are resurrected. (c.f. Luk. 20:37-38) 

When we find ourselves having a desire that would lead to a gross sin, as the works of the flesh are, we must recognize it as such a desire.  Only by doing that can we act to stop that desire from giving birth to sin.  In such a moment it is advisable to turn our attention to God, either by opening his word and reading from it, or by going to him in prayer.   In doing this, through the aid of his Spirit, we will be successful in avoiding the works of the flesh.  By paying close attention to our thoughts and desires we will display our true love for God (1Joh. 5:3), while maintaining the hope of everlasting life in his kingdom. (Rev. 21:1-4)