100 Bible Verses about Being Carnal Christian

1 Corinthians 3:1 ESV / 11 helpful votes

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.

1 Corinthians 3:3 ESV / 9 helpful votes

For you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?

1 Corinthians 3:1-23 ESV / 9 helpful votes

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. ...

Romans 8:6 ESV / 9 helpful votes

For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

Romans 8:9 ESV / 8 helpful votes

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

1 Corinthians 2:14 ESV / 7 helpful votes

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

1 John 1:9 ESV / 6 helpful votes

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 Corinthians 3:1-4 ESV / 6 helpful votes

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?

Romans 12:1-2 ESV / 6 helpful votes

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 8:7 ESV / 6 helpful votes

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.

Romans 8:1-39 ESV / 6 helpful votes

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. ...

Luke 6:46 ESV / 6 helpful votes

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?

1 Peter 2:11 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.

Galatians 5:17 ESV / 5 helpful votes

For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

1 Corinthians 3:4 ESV / 5 helpful votes

For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?

1 Corinthians 3:2 ESV / 5 helpful votes

I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready,

Romans 8:6-8 ESV / 5 helpful votes

For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Romans 7:1-25 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. ...

Luke 8:13 ESV / 5 helpful votes

And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away.

James 4:4 ESV / 4 helpful votes

You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Hebrews 12:14 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

Galatians 6:1 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.

Galatians 5:20 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions,

Galatians 5:16 ESV / 4 helpful votes

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

2 Corinthians 6:14-18 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”

1 Corinthians 3:1-3 ESV / 4 helpful votes

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?

Romans 8:14 ESV / 4 helpful votes

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

Romans 8:4 ESV / 4 helpful votes

In order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Romans 7:14 ESV / 4 helpful votes

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

Romans 6:14 ESV / 4 helpful votes

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Romans 6:2 ESV / 4 helpful votes

By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

Romans 6:1-23 ESV / 4 helpful votes

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ...

John 8:44 ESV / 4 helpful votes

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

John 3:16 ESV / 4 helpful votes

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

John 2:24 ESV / 4 helpful votes

But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people

Luke 6:38 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”

Matthew 7:21 ESV / 4 helpful votes

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

1 John 2:15-17 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

1 John 1:8 ESV / 3 helpful votes

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

James 2:19 ESV / 3 helpful votes

You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!

James 1:14 ESV / 3 helpful votes

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

Hebrews 5:9 ESV / 3 helpful votes

And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him,

2 Timothy 3:5 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

1 Timothy 4:3 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

1 Thessalonians 1:5 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.

Colossians 3:2 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

Ephesians 4:13 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,

Galatians 6:8 ESV / 3 helpful votes

For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.

Galatians 5:24 ESV / 3 helpful votes

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Galatians 5:1-26 ESV / 3 helpful votes

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. ...

1 Corinthians 6:11 ESV / 3 helpful votes

And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

1 Corinthians 6:9 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,

1 Corinthians 3:16 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?

1 Corinthians 2:15 ESV / 3 helpful votes

The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.

1 Corinthians 2:14-15 ESV / 3 helpful votes

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.

1 Corinthians 2:12 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.

Romans 13:13 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy.

Romans 12:2 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 10:17 ESV / 3 helpful votes

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Romans 8:6-7 ESV / 3 helpful votes

For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.

Romans 8:5 ESV / 3 helpful votes

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

Romans 8:1-9 ESV / 3 helpful votes

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. ...

John 15:10 ESV / 3 helpful votes

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.

John 14:6 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

John 7:1-53 ESV / 3 helpful votes

After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. Now the Jews' Feast of Booths was at hand. So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” For not even his brothers believed in him. ...

John 3:1-36 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ...

Revelation 21:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

Revelation 18:4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues;

Jude 1:4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

1 John 3:14 ESV / 2 helpful votes

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.

1 John 2:1-29 ESV / 2 helpful votes

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: ...

1 John 1:4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

2 Peter 3:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

2 Peter 1:21 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

1 Peter 5:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

1 Peter 3:1-22 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, ...

1 Peter 1:16 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

1 Peter 1:15 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,

James 5:16 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

James 2:1-26 ESV / 2 helpful votes

My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? ...

James 1:22 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

James 1:13 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.

James 1:1-27 ESV / 2 helpful votes

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. ...

Hebrews 13:1-25 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” ...

Hebrews 12:5-11 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? ...

Hebrews 10:15-17 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”

Hebrews 8:6-10 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. For he finds fault with them when he says: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Hebrews 7:16 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life.

Hebrews 6:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,

Hebrews 5:12-14 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Hebrews 5:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.

Titus 3:5 ESV / 2 helpful votes

He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,

2 Timothy 3:17 ESV / 2 helpful votes

That the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV / 2 helpful votes

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

2 Timothy 3:3 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good,

2 Timothy 3:2-7 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, ...

2 Timothy 2:22 ESV / 2 helpful votes

So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

2 Timothy 2:15 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

2 Timothy 2:4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.

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