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The Unnatural Natural Man

by Jerry Ousley
9/01/2017 / Christian Living

What he did just wasn’t natural. In the Sit-Com “Everybody Loves Raymond” Ray’s brother Robert (played by Brad Garrett) had a very unusual habit: When eating he instinctively touched his food to his chin before putting it in his mouth. Now who does that? I’ve heard of people smelling their food before eating but touching it to your chin? Come on; what’s with that? But he did it. It wasn’t natural.

A lot of us have unusual habits. Okay, I’ll reveal one of mine. When eating a fried egg, most people cut the egg up and stir the white and yellow yoke together. But not me…nope; I like to cut away the white, eating it first, then scoop up the yellow, still entrapped in what remains of the white, and eat it all at once. Why do I do it that way? My only explanation is, “that’s the way I like it.” There have been times, when eating breakfast in a restaurant, that my family has been embarrassed by the way I eat my fried eggs. I tell them, “Don’t worry about it; most of the time I’ve got it scooped up and in my mouth before anyone has a chance to see me do it.” I’ve told them that it’s like an egg starburst (you know, the candy that has a liquid flavor in the middle – when you chew it you get a “burst of flavor” – same thing only with an egg).

We view things like what I’ve described above as unnatural habits. Some say that being a Christian and believing in an unseen God is unnatural. When believers refuse to lie, cheat, and steal for some strange reason the world labels us as “unnatural.” Okay, the majority of people, Christian or not, believe in morals and wouldn’t lie, cheat, or steal. Still, they may think that being a Christian and refusing to do certain things is unnatural.

Listen to the words of 1 Corinthians 2:14 – “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” In this verse Paul is telling us that the natural man, signifying those who are not believers, can’t understand the concept of having faith in God, or miracles, or our dedication to worship. Without Christ in our lives we cannot understand the wisdom of God or the things of the Spirit of God. To the natural man they are foolish practices and a waste of time. “Depend only on what you learn, and can conceive by the five senses” they say. We also hear the slogan, “Knowledge is power.” To a degree this is true; but only when that knowledge is coming from God.

Now I want to suggest something else to you bearing in mind the context of Paul’s words about the natural man. Once again, we have labeled those who don’t believe in God but believe only what our instincts might be telling us, as the natural man. What I want to bring up is that in man’s original state, before he ate of the forbidden fruit and gained the knowledge of good and evil from the twisted side of evil (remember that Adam sinned when he ate the fruit because God had told him not to do it – that’s what I mean by the twisted side of evil) the nature of man was to look to God believing in Him and trusting Him.

Okay, so if in reality it was man’s original nature was to believe in God, doesn’t it stand to reason that what should be considered natural is being a Christian? Are we not in reality the natural ones while those who don’t believe in God are really the unnatural ones? From this point of view those labeled as natural men are in reality, unnatural natural men.

Because the majority has refused to believe in God, either by being an atheist, or worshipping something or someone else besides God, the Bible has labeled them as “the natural man.” They think that many of our practices, our belief and trust in an unseen God, our faith in Him, that the Bible is the absolute final authority, and that one day Christ will return for His people, is foolishness. The natural man can’t received spiritual things because he limits himself to what he can see, hear, touch, smell, and taste. He can’t know the wisdom of God because it can only be spiritually discerned (or come to know).

So we see two sides; the natural man and the spiritual man. The natural man relies only on what he has learned, the knowledge and wisdom of man, and to even think about discovering the truth of the spiritual man is downright foolishness. But those who have by faith and have gained the spiritual view see things the natural man can only hope for. We have discovered the gift of God, salvation through Jesus Christ, and the ability to know our final futures. That can only be discerned and learned through and by the Holy Spirit of God, and that’s what should come natural.

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com-CHRISTIAN WRITERS

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