The Two Appetites:
Carnal or Spiritual

THE NEED FOR MEANING

Every person is born with a need for meaningfulness—and the greatest manifestation of meaning will always come through our connection to others, especially God. When we accept this truth, our lives will tend to attract adventure as well as grace and peace. But when a detached identity convinces us that we are disconnected and separate from God and others, we are left with a deep spiritual void that longs to be filled. The separated soul tries to distract us from feeling the void of meaninglessness by creating a carnal appetite that masks our real desires for meaningful connection and replaces them with unfulfilling desires for immediate gratification. We can recognize these unfulfilling desires by the fact that they leave us feeling empty or unfulfilled, with our conscience often convicted as soon as we finish them. This is in contrast to acting on spiritual (or meaningful) desires, which always leave our conscience feeling good about what we just accomplished. 

THE SPIRIT OR THE FLESH

The word for “spirit” in the New Testament Greek is “Pneuma.” Pneuma is also the same Greek word used for “wind” or “breath.” The thing about wind or breath is, they have to be moving to exist. Your spirit is the movement behind your motives. The Holy Spirit is the One who aims you toward holiness. An evil spirit aims you toward evil. God’s Spirit within us is the inner witness that constantly aims us toward our highest purpose in life—Love, which is utmost meaningfulness. The Spirit within us is ever suggesting we give our present moments to the permanent eternal fruit of Love. The separated soul on the other hand, uses lust to tempt us toward a counterfeit purpose, which is simply to gratify our carnal desires, with no regard to meaningfulness, besides instant gratification. Separation is ever-suggesting we give our present moments to short-term pleasures and the avoidance of discomfort at the expense of long term meaning, responsibility and integrity. These carnal pleasures cannot fulfill spiritual needs so we are left feeling empty even when we fulfill these desires. Meaningfulness can only be achieved by the Spirit. 

“But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it has run its course, brings forth death.” - James 1:14-15 (NASB)

The English word “lust” as seen in the passage above, is translated from the Greek word “epithumia.” In this passage, it is used to describe the desires that result from a wounded or separated soul. When our souls are consumed by lust, we get tricked into giving our life energy (or presence) to sin (or separation), which will rob our relationships of love and eventually kill us if it remains uncured by Love. Just about all of us have seen the destruction that lust can bring to individuals and families. A separated soul takes healthy desires, like hunger, affection, or entertainment and perverts them, turning them into all consuming appetites of addiction. Detachment causes us to lust or desire things from a twisted, unhealthy perspective, so when we obey these lusts, we allow them to steal the present from meaningfulness. 

Lust is when we crave more than what we have been given, or something more than what is healthy. To illustrate this, imagine you are seated at a table along with twenty others and servers begin to bring out food. As they are bringing out plates, you notice everyone is receiving huge, oversized portions. The plates are overflowing with food. But when your plate is finally brought out, you notice your portion is far smaller than everyone else’s. It is still enough for you to be satisfied, but the idea that you got less than everyone else causes you to become bitter and ungrateful for the food you got. This is the detached soul creating lust and discontent out of comparison rather than finding peace in the truth. The truth is, you have plenty of food. The truth is, you don't even need this meal to be happy. The truth is, you don't even need to eat all week and you can still be content and grateful. Yet the illusion tricked you into creating an offense and missing the joy of the moment because of the idea of comparison or the idea that someone somewhere was trying to insult you. Even if they were, why allow their offense to steal your present state of joy and love? There is no rule anywhere that says you have to let it affect you. That is only an imaginary rule. The truth is that when we are aware of what we truly have, we need not lust for anything more. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” - Psalm 23:1 (KJV)

WHEN OUR LIFE LACKS PURPOSE, WE PURSUE CARNAL PLEASURE

The detached soul tries to use carnal food to satisfy spiritual hunger, but carnal food is only really satisfying when consumed with spiritual meaning, never in absence of it. Our Creator has given us the five senses of smelling, tasting, touching, hearing, and seeing. Our noses and mouths crave smells and tastes, our eyes and ears crave images and sound, and our hands and bodies crave physical touch and happy emotions. These gifts were given to us so that we could express, enjoy and experience love, but when we operate out of separation instead of love, these desires overtake our purpose, and if unchecked, they will become all consuming addictions. 

The desires of the soul and flesh are not evil. So long as these desires remain within healthy boundaries, they are some of the greatest gifts God has ever given to us and they should be fully received, appreciated and explored as part of an incredibly rich human experience. Marriage and family is the healthiest of boundaries in which to explore these pleasures and the extent to which your marriage experiences the pleasures of the body and soul is really the determining factor that most of us can't help but use to measure our satisfaction and enjoyment of life. 

When our lives lack purpose, we will pursue carnal pleasures. So instead of using our senses to serve love, we forfeit love and simply serve our sensual desires. The Separated mind fools us into believing that we can experience love without sacrifice, connection without intimacy, and belonging without commitment. Absent from love, things like food, sex and entertainment, have no lasting meaning, but when practiced in love, these are full of meaning. The same act, like sex, can feel utterly meaningless and even shameful when done to fulfill lust, or totally meaningful and life giving when done to fulfill love. 

WHICHEVER APPETITE YOU FEED WILL GROW

Your presence can be used to serve the spirit (love) or the flesh (ego). The Spirit and the flesh are always at war over your present. Whichever appetite you feed is the one that will grow. If you choose to feed your lust, your lust will grow. If you choose to feed your spirit, your spirit will grow. What you choose to give your presence to will determine the fruit or “produce” of your life. In other words, if you give your presence to the flesh you will produce carnal fruit, but if you give your presence to the Spirit, you will produce spiritual fruit. When the New Testament uses the word “flesh” it is often not merely a reference to the “meat” of your body, but to the carnal desires of the ego. We can see this through the context of many passages, but perhaps the clearest is in Galatians 5: 13-26 (NIV). 

“13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. 16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 The acts of the flesh (ego) are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God (Love). 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh (ego) with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.” - Galatians 5: 13-26 (NIV).

The passage above shows that the flesh (or ego) influences us to spend our present energy on divisions and carnal pleasures, instead of connection and meaningfulness. Many people have heard of the ten commandments but we rarely hear much about the original five commandments, which were given to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. These five commandments reveal humanity's original purpose. “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue the earth and rule over it…” - Genesis 1:28 (abbreviated). In essence, be productive, build family and make everything around you beautiful and functional. To this day, these continue to be the things that will bring the greatest sense of meaningfulness to our lives. Research indicates that a primary cause of depression is meaninglessness. Depression has a hard time growing on a meaningful life. The goal of this lesson is to recognize the differences between the appetite of the flesh, which is meaninglessness, and the appetite of the Spirit, which is meaningfulness. By following the Spirit, instead of the flesh, we will fill our lives with meaning, which is the antidote for the disease of our sin nature.

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” - Galatians 5:1 (NIV)

Freedom in Christ is not a license to indulge in sin but a complete liberation from the sin nature itself. Our sin nature is the separated mind of slavery. It's the idea of a detached world seen from an isolated psyche, an insecure existence obsessed with survival in the vengeful system of actions and reactions. In contrast, the revelation of our life in Christ changes our perspective, freeing us from our sin nature, allowing our minds to be rebirthed into a new world of secure connection. 

“Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?” - Romans 6:16 

​

POWER OVER SLAVERY

Freedom is power. It is power over slavery. Many of us are slaves in more ways than we are willing to see. In today’s world, almost everyone faces some form of addiction at some point, whether it’s to substances, technology, or even to stress. As discussed in earlier lessons, stress can become addictive because it releases chemicals like cortisol and adrenaline, which your body starts to crave. More commonly though, addiction is developed when your brain becomes hooked on activities that spark intense emotional highs, such as using drugs or alcohol, excessive sugar, watching pornography, playing video games, or scrolling social media. These addictions are driven by dopamine, a chemical that floods you with feelings of happiness. God designed your brain’s dopamine system to reward you for natural, healthy  and meaningful actions, like helping others or achieving goals, but when we trigger the release of dopamine artificially, we allow God’s reward system to be hijacked, and meaningfulness to be bypassed. These man made addictions are often intentionally engineered to generate a dopamine rush far stronger than everyday joys so it is easy for our lives to be overtaken by them. Doing this repetitively will make us lose motivation and capability for experiencing the lasting joys of a meaningful, real life. In the same way that detachment hijacks the present moment, giving it to frustrations of the past or fears of the future, addiction steals the present moment as well, giving it to artificial and meaningless pleasures instead of real ones. 

Addiction isn’t the problem; it’s the solution. It provides a brief respite from the relentless momentum of wearing ego’s masks. The stress of maintaining separation is the primary source of our real problems in life, causing anxiety, division, inflammation, and even chronic illness. But the good news is that union in Christ can redeem us, heal us and set us free from disconnection.

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” - John 8:36

THE FOUR C’S OF ADDICTION

If you have ever been close to an addict, you might have heard of “the Four Cs of addiction.” The four Cs are a framework used to identify and describe the core characteristics of addictive behaviors. They are: Craving, Compulsion, Control and Consequences. You can recognize and assess addiction in your own or someone else’s life by these four C’s; 

Intense CRAVINGS triggered by cues or emotions

A COMPULSIVE drive to engage in harmful behaviors despite wanting to stop

An inability to CONTROL or limit the behavior

Persistence in the face of negative CONSEQUENCES to health, relationships, or finances

Addiction is often fueled by an attempt to escape from the negative emotions like stress, trauma, or meaninglessness, that stem from a detached psyche. Studies show that early childhood trauma, like abuse, neglect or instability, feeds our sense of detachment and can scar our ability to handle negative emotions throughout our lives, which only instigates further insecurity and isolation. Obviously, distracting ourselves with artificial stimuli is not a cure and can make returning to wholeness and meaningfulness even harder. Instead of treating the symptoms of separation with artificial stimuli, we must cure the disease altogether. The Bible tells us that reconciliation and reattachment to God through Christ is the medicine that cures the disease of separation. 

“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” - Colossians 1:19–20

“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.” - 2 Corinthians 5:18–19 

Copywrite (C) Jacob Reeve 2024