The Flesh Always Wants More Than Christ
The children of Israel once made their demand clear:
“Make us a king to judge us like all the nations.” (1 Samuel 8:5)
God told Samuel, “They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.” (1 Samuel 8:7)
This is the heart of religious flesh. It is not content with God’s invisible reign. It always wants God + something tangible — something it can see, touch, control, and boast in.
The Power of the Flesh
This is why it baffles me when Christians run back to the shadows of the old covenant when the substance has come in Christ. It shows how powerful the flesh really is.
The flesh abhors walking by faith — because faith surrenders control. So the flesh dresses up walking by sight, calls it spirituality, and settles for something visible and political instead of something eternal.
That is why we call the outcome religious flesh. And religious flesh, no matter how holy it looks, is simply sin.
God + An Earthly King
Israel wanted God + an earthly king. Many today want God + a nation, God + political power, God + Israel, God + law, God + culture wars. It’s all the same spirit.
But the moment you add to Christ, you subtract from Him. You are saying with your actions, “We will not have this man to reign over us.” (Luke 19:14)
Christian Zionism, Christian Nationalism, or any “Christian +” movement follows this same carnal logic. It is sight over faith, flesh over Spirit, shadows over substance.
The Eternal Divide
Scripture only recognizes two kinds of people:
- The natural man, dead in Adam, unable to receive the things of the Spirit.
- The spiritual man, alive in Christ, discerning all things.
There is no third category of “Christian +.” To cling to fleshly religion is to act as though one were still dead in Adam, even while professing Christ.
And as Paul made so plain in 2 Corinthians 3, the glory of the old covenant has been swallowed up in the surpassing glory of Christ. To go back to Moses is to put the veil over your eyes again.
Contending for the Faith
The tares grow with the wheat until the harvest. We may not know in this life who among the “Christian +” movements are carnal believers stumbling in ignorance, and who are still natural men with no true life in Christ. That is the Lord’s to judge.
Christ Alone
Ours is to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints and lift up Christ alone, not Christ plus anything else. And as Jude warned, there will be mockers in the last days, “sensual, having not the Spirit” (Jude 18–19). Yet the same mercy and grace God has shown to us must be extended to the deceived — “of some have compassion, making a difference; and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire” (Jude 23).
This is how we stand firm without becoming hard, and how we keep Christ central while resisting every counterfeit kingdom.
Christ plus anything is no longer Christ.