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It can be confusing for Christians to read about the love, peace, unity, and harmony to which we are called and resolve it with the strife, arguments, and worldliness so observable in most of actual Christian practice.

Being 'carnal' means 'of the flesh' or the old nature. When a person becomes a Christian, he gets a new nature, but that does not mean the old one disappears. The re-emergence of the influence of the old nature can be seen in the letter Paul wrote the Galatians.

The Galatians had accepted the instruction of 'experts' from Jerusalem who were telling them they needed to add Jewish practices such as circumcision to their Christian walk. It is instructive to consider what happened in Galatia because it is so representative of how we can come to be diverted into walking in the flesh.

The Galatians were not seeking to do evil. They were probably not even aware that what they were doing was wrong. They probably had a sincere desire to be faithful to do what was right. They let themselves be deceived by those claiming the authority to tell them what was right.

We live in a society that de-emphasizes personal responsibility to such a degree that even criminals often think that their crimes were not their fault. Given such a social environment, it can be even more difficult to consider that the Galatians are taken to task and held accountable for their individual failure in discernment and vigilance to remain faithful.

It is interesting to note that church members are not held blameless because they were misled by their 'leadership'. Here is an important difference between modern church practice and that of the New Testament times, the idea that church membership requires unquestioning acceptance of prepackaged dogma and compliant observance of established practices has more in common with the Pharisees than the early church.

Almost all failure to walk by the Spirit can be traced back to getting diverted into some variation of walking in the flesh. At first glance the failure of the Galatians may be seen as choosing the wrong doctrine (an emphasis on works). However, at a deeper level the failure was a surrender of their individual responsibility to seek, evaluate and find truth.

Underlying and leading to the act of being misled into walking by the flesh instead of the Spirit was a sort of spiritual laziness that made the Galatians vulnerable to false teachings. One of the quickest ways to drift from the path of walking by the Spirit is to switch to a sort of 'automatic pilot' type of Christian life. In contrast a Christian life of active seeking and evaluating provides protection from deception.

In contrast to the Galatians who could be mislead, the Christians in Berea were actively seeking and evaluating truth. The process of Christian growth that the Holy Spirit would have us undertake, requires our active participation.

Here we have a description of a condition more familiarly known as a 'lapse'. The example of Hebrews is one of losing spiritual ground through a failure to 'exercise'. The resulting growth of 'dullness' is a regression such that they are described as having to start over in their Christian life.

The failure of the Hebrews is one of neglecting salvation as a result of finding others things of more interest, value, and attraction. We can learn important lessons from the Hebrews and Galatians as the same things that happened to them can happen to us and for the same reasons.

All to often we let 'slip' away the riches in Christ for the comforts of the flesh. It is understandable, but not necessary as God has provided the means to overcome the flesh.

Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak. - Mark 14:38

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