For starters, I’m a believer, you’re not.  I am forgiven, you are not.  I am spiritual, you are carnal.  Which is to say, we are as different as different can be. At the extremes, we both look out at the world from such different perspectives, it’s no wonder there’s such division in the world.

To be clear, the difference I’m speaking to is the difference between your standard, Mark I, Mod I Atheist and your typical “Bible thumping” Christian. I say that in a lighthearted way as a means of coming at it from the vantage point of two sides of you, the individual, looking in a mirror at yourself. On one side of the mirror, you got the carnal “You”, the unsaved “You”, and on the other side, you got the “you” God sees, the saved “you”. Which side of you is on the “real” side of the mirror depends on the choice you’ve made. Get your mind around that!

After all, we are, in fact, all the same in the sense that we are all faced with the choice to believe in God or not to believe in god. So, in truth, we are each two sides of the same coin; we are born nonbelievers until a point in our life after our infancy, after our childhood, when we become cognizant of the notion or idea of “A God”. I mean, essentially, there’s no way to go through life without hearing about God, about Jesus Christ, about the bible, about churchgoing, etc.

So, as I said we all have two sides to our person. Well, if you want to get technical, since we’re made in God’s image according to the Bible, there are three “parts” to our being; the spirit, the soul, and the flesh. And when we become aware of “God”, and by that I mean, when we have heard the gospel of Jesus Christ such that we know and understand the choice put before us, we are simultaneously faced with a choice and choose to believe or not at that very moment.

I’m sure much of that is not new to most, but I say it for this reason: the difference between me and “You” is that, as a believer, my soul and spirit are alive to God and my flesh is dead. For those who choose not to believe, your soul and spirit are dead to God and your flesh is alive. That’s it. That’s all there is to it. As I said, I am spiritual, you are carnal when once we were both carnal.

All of that to say this: I know the flesh. I know what it means to be fleshly, to be carnal, which is to say selfish, self-centered, godless, moralistic, a sophist; looking at “Christians” as dolts, simpleton’s, idiots. Mocking them, laughing at them, persecuting them, all while dead to God, and full-on alive to the flesh. I know what it means to treat believers with such a high minded, holier than thou, sanctimonious attitude like some of the personalities we see on TV. I could name celebrity after celebrity who unabashedly makes it known exactly where they stand on the matter of God and often come through loud and clear with their outright disdain for any and all who call themselves Christians. Now, I realize celebrities don’t matter much, they just have access to large audiences because of their celebrity status and have opportunity to influence people enamored with whatever brand of carnality a particular celebrity “puts out”.

More importantly, I can name politician after politician on both “conservative” and “liberal” sides of the political spectrum in positions of authority and power who scorn at Christians while making decisions with a purely carnal mind that affects everyone in our country. I mean think about it, non-Christians, non-believers, aka carnal man, in positions of authority making decisions on every hot button issue you can think of; and as time goes on, Christians are not represented, are not allowed in the public square, are derided, marginalized, and out right ignored by these carnal men in high places, many of which are drunk on power.

And I would be remiss if I left out the press, aka the “Main Stream Media”, aka “fake news”, NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, last and least, CNN, which are nothing more than propaganda streams for liberal democrats, progressives, socialist, communists, whatever you want call them. Many of the people/personalities, correspondents, “Talking Heads”, whatever they call themselves, on these outlets are avowed atheists. That means the root of what makes these people tick is nothing more than fleshly carnality and godlessness; often expressed in terms of a type of moralistic humanism, which is nothing more than championing the flesh, worshiping the flesh, an “I think, therefore, I am” mentality.

And here’s why I so confidently lay claim to knowing and believing these things:

Ephesians 2:1-3

And you [hath he quickened], who were dead in trespasses and sins;

Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:

Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

This passage says it all. It excludes no one. This is everyone’s state of being before we make that choice, the choice to believe, or not. The phrase had our conversation means to “live”. So, when we were, or while we still are, living in the lust of our flesh, it, unadulterated carnality, is the basis for how we think about our relationships, our interactions with the world, our judgements; with each other, and without God. Walking, which also means living, “according to the course of the world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience”. As I’ve said, is it any wonder we don’t see eye to eye on virtually anything? Especially the deeper things of life like life itself, love, faith, loyalty, honesty, genuineness; the list goes on and on…

While I could name names, I won’t because it really doesn’t matter which carnal person you talk about, they’re all the same. The only difference might be degrees of depravity, but at the root of it, they’re all the same. And let me be clear about something here. There’s no such thing as a perfect Christian. Nor is any of this about being perfect, morally or otherwise. And for me in particular, trust me when I tell you, I had my conversation in times past in the lusts of my flesh, no bones about it. So, don’t come back at me with that argument because it is empty at the outset. I am, or should I say, was guilty and own it in its entirety and yet I am forgiven, you are not.

What I‘m getting at is that I was once one of “You”. I thought like “You”. I dealt with others like “You”. I looked out for myself first; and often, only myself. What mattered most was what I thought, what I wanted, what I believed, be it humanism, subjective moralism, secularism, socialism, communism, scientologyism, Buddhism, Taoism, this “ism”, that “ism”, whatever kind of “ism”.

And so, I know what makes you tick because I was you and in many ways I’m still you because while I am dead to the flesh and alive to God, I still have my flesh, I still have to bring it into subjection since I am still bound by this life. Yet, I am at the same time free from it because God has provided us all a way out. I see through you, I see you as God sees you and, in truth, see whom you really are, which brings me to one of the biggest differences between us: I see and you don’t because I can and you can’t.

I Corinthians 2:14

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned.