Life in the Spirit

(Rom. 7:4-6, John 3:5-8, Rom. 6:4-11)

Are we walking by the Spirit?  Are we born of the Spirit?. No one can live a spiritual life without the Spirit of God.  Now we can get harsh with many who are spiritually immature but that reveals our own immaturity.  Mature love is patient and kind with the weakest among us.  Paul gave the example of not eating meat in the presence of one whose conscience was weak so that they would not be troubled by it.  He also knew how to deal with blasphemy and false teaching.  We grow as we go on with the Lord.

After many years, I understood that when we receive Him, when Jesus Christ is revealed to us and we agree to follow Him, the Holy Spirit comes alongside to help and takes a place in us.  Our spirit is joined to His.  That is what Paul expresses concerning the law.  We are then dead to outward attempts at pleasing God and truly alive to Him.  He is our Father and we become one of His children.  The law leads us to the Lamb of God who was crushed, ripped to shreds, for us all.  In the ministry of Jesus and His end as crucified before the eyes of man, God demonstrated that He was not looking for outward observances of religious practice.  He put an end to shadows and was bringing in the substance.  Remember, the veil of the old system was torn from the top to the bottom.  A tremendous transition was happening in the history of mankind.

God had determined that the days of Jesus of Nazareth would come at that moment which is called the fulness of times.  It was a time of spiritual deadness and the world’s darkest time when Jesus Christ died.  Fellowship with Christ brings us to a personal knowledge of this in our lives and the time that we live here.  We see the darkness in us and around us.  Peter encourages us to pay attention to Christ the rising star in us as we are aware of the darkness.  We are waking up to who we are by the Spirit, even a new creation.  As children we begin to learn to walk.  As we grow, we may hear the Lord say if you cannot keep up with the footmen, how will you run with the horses.  The Spirit will teach us to move quickly with the Lord.

These words are all about growth and learning to cooperate with the Spirit, with the Lord.  Without human wrangling over the understanding the Father, Son, and Spirit, remember the simple truth.  The Lord is the Spirit and where He is, one has liberty.  We are dead to the law, and free from any domination of our bad selves, so that we might walk in love.  We are enabled to live fruitful lives since we re united with Christ in resurrection.

His death was total and complete.  And His life is total and complete and in that Life is all that we need.  He has poured out His Spirit on all flesh.  That is being carried by His witnesses into every corner of the inhabited earth.  That work, the harvest of God, has been in clear process for 2000 years.  The battle continues to be for a refining and maturing of a people who are like Christ, the Lamb.  Review the meaning of that name for the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God.  I heard a so-called renowned teacher referring to Him as a ram as if to display His horns and some mature strength.  That is not what I hear by the Spirit.  In contrast, that name “Lamb” is of a young, even little, lamb.  Rather, hear the humility of the One who said He is meek and lowly in heart.  That is the Spirit we are to live and walk by.  Continue to resist every religious spirit, and walk by the One who is eternal.

Our walk must be new every day.  If we are still trying to be new wineskins, we will never get there.  Yes we pursue spiritual realities but they are given.  Truth is found in the seeming contradictions of God.  When we are weak, we are strong.  We are dead to our flesh, and alive to God , all at the same time.  Eternal life.  It cannot be taught, but must be known.  We learn what it means to wait upon Him and allow the fresh dew of the Spirit to refresh our spirits to rise within.  It is like the mist that rose from the earth.  And now it flows from our innermost being as rivers of Living Water, His Spirit.  Let it flow unhindered.