Email from Abiding Place Daily Bread – August 11, 2025 (The Second Day – Genesis 1:6-8) Matthew 16:24 – Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. The Limitations of the Self That which is carnal, or natural, is not necessarily bad – it is just earthly and temporal (Romans 15:27; 1 Corinthians 9:11, 15:44). The natural mind would more eagerly look to a human answer or earthly remedy to supply a need. The natural mind is governed by what it sees, hears, and has physical evidence for, and therefore, would not be submitted to the Spirit of God. We have to be willing to stop trembling with fear as we clutch the side of the pool, but rather, stretch ourselves out over the vast expanse of the heavenly and walk in the Spirit. To do this, the self must be denied. It does not need to be put to death, it just needs to be refused, so that we might learn how to function in a whole new way of life. The spiritual mind that accepts the impossibilities of the Word of God without the need of any other proofs far exceeds the limitation of what self can understand. The spiritual mind functions in a realm of faith, and depends upon the unseen power of God to supply all that we have need of. If we confine our thinking to the things belonging only to our own self interest and self preservation, then we will focus on the things we can accomplish through our own efforts and abilities. These limitations of self realization will then govern what we will believe, and ultimately what we will do. Without being aware of it, we will even filter God’s Word through the perspective of these self serving interests. Many of God’s children are stuck in this place and have been robbed of their maturity in God. It has limited their confidence in God and dependence upon the Holy Spirit. It is impossible for the realm of self to live in a confidence in God wherein one takes no thought for what they shall eat or what they shall wear (Matthew 6:21-33). The realm of self is a place of fear, condemnation, limitation, failure, and even defeat. There is little room for faith and submission to the Holy Spirit in the realm of carnal, human thinking where men seek their own interest and rely upon human abilities to accomplish their goals. The natural mind is the state in which men hold on tightly to themselves to preserve their own well-being, and their securities are their earthly possessions. The carnal mind and ways of men will altogether shut down those things the Holy Spirit has come to teach us (1 Corinthians 3:1-3; Romans 8:5-9). Blessings, Pastor Mark Spitsbergen
Daily Bread 8/11/2025
