Question #2: How are we different from the world?

#2 is a hard one. My initial thought was that the difference between walking according to the flesh vs Spirit was, “do I live to satisfy myself and nourish myself, or do I live for another object, such that self is secondary?” But, there are many people who don’t know God who live very unselfish lives for some cause or other—say, the environmental movement. This presents a difficulty for me, because if, as I think, to “live according to the Spirit and set your mind on the things of the Spirit” is a deliberate and conscious thing, it is made up of conscious thoughts and actions. But one’s thoughts and actions can be turned from “the flesh” (if you define things of the flesh as being things which please and benefit oneself) by other things than God. To take the environmental example… is a person who takes the bus instead of driving, or eats less, poorer and more expensive food because they want to use less of the world’s resources, “living according to the flesh”?

Now, here’s an interesting thing… sometimes, a Christian and a non-Christian are both driven to perform the exact same conscious action. Taking the environmental example… the environmentalist wants to use less of the world’s resources because he feels it to be more just to the powerless in other countries, while the Christian does so for the exact same reason, and ultimately because he knows that the poor and powerless are loved by God, and he is moved by the Spirit inside him to love them as God loves them. And yet, I think the Bible says that one is living according to the flesh and setting his mind on the things of the flesh, while one is living according the Spirit and setting his mind there.

The solution that immediately presents itself is that “God cares more us than what we do.” He loves the action of the Christian not so much because it takes care of the powerless (He can do that Himself, though that’s another can of worms I don’t want to open), but because it brings the Christian closer to Him and in line with the law of the new life He is preparing him for—ie, in my favorite metaphor, it means the graft is taking. I don’t know how He feels about the action of the environmentalist. I think He loves it in so far as it brings the actor closer to loving Him and knowing Him, and hates it in so far as it distances him from Him.