5-8 Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.

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Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires;(A) but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.(B) The mind governed by the flesh is death,(C) but the mind governed by the Spirit is life(D) and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God;(E) it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.

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