Dying with Christ: Continued

Raising a family was not the sin of Eden. God told Adam and his wife to be fruitful, to multiply and replenish the earth before their transgression. When man and woman marry simply for the gratification of the flesh, they transgress a higher law of their being. They are living on the plane of the flesh. This is true of everything in life. To build a house, or remodel one, to buy home furniture or an automobile to the gratifying of the flesh is sowing to the flesh. There are to be fasts, by mutual consent for the soul’s good in the married life, the same as abstaining from food and drink (1 Corinthians 7:5). Dying with Jesus means the refusing to do anything in life purely for fleshly gratification. This is holy living. This is where many a saint is coming short of the perfect life. They are too careless. Their soul is not stirred up to realization of the great importance of sowing to the Spirit. Listening to the suggestion of the flesh has caused many a one to fail to obey the Spirit. They sowed to the flesh instead of to the Spirit, and they will have to pay the penalty. They absent themselves from the prayer meeting, from the closet, fail to give of their means at the suggestion of the flesh. They are missing the joy of God.