The Importance of Saying No

In the flesh means you're not born again yet. That was before salvation. To live after the flesh is talking about a person who is saved but goes back living and conducting himself doing exactly what the world does, becomes dominated by the fallen nature. So at one time that someone who's been born again gloriously filled with the Holy Spirit, the glory of God is the life. But now when they go backwards and they become governed by the old nature, the Glory of God becomes nothing to them and the flesh becomes everything to them. You have the power to say no because your will is not under the authority of sin.