Crucify Crucify Crucify what?

Every single person alive has fleshly desires that they battle with...

The Bible says in Galatians 5:24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have CRUCIFIED the flesh with its passions and desires? 

Have we really?

Well yes, we are able to, in the power of the Holy Spirit and the work of Jesus on the cross. The same resurrection power that Jesus exerted on the cross lives in us! 

While that is true and we know it is true, do we really crucify the desires of the flesh, that so easily entangle us - food, alcohol, gossip, adultery, lust, pornography, tobacco, video games, greed, the love of money, possession, and for lack of better terms pure "laziness" that keeps us from living to our redemptive potential?

I have witnessed first hand the desires of the flesh in my own life and the life of others. Way to often we try to manage the fleshly desires. We tell people to ween off of, or to reduce the intake. We even watch people think they can somehow break the addiction, by daily placing themselves in the presence of the very thing, their flesh longs for. Yet that is not the picture of crucifying something.

To crucify means to hack it off, grab a chainsaw and cut it off, kill it, make it dead, remove ourselves completely from the very thing, that wants to take us down. It is the picture of us crucifying or dying everyday to that fleshly desire, and surrendering our appetite for it to the Lord and killing it.

The only way to kill a desire is to cut it off completely, not manage it. When Jesus gave his infamous sermon on the mount he said this,"If your right hand causes you to stumble cut it off!" 

The only way we can overcome our fleshly habits is to have a personal crucifixion, every single day! So I ask you today, "where do you need to grab a chainsaw and cut something off and kill it?" 

You will never walk in freedom until you totally remove the very thing, that causes you to stumble from your lives!