Living by the Spirit

Galatians 5:16-26 (New Living Translation)

Living by the Spirit’s Power

 16 So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. 17 The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. 18 But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.

 19 When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, 21 envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

 22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. 25 Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. 26 Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another.

Wow, where do i even start? I can’t tell you how many times i read this verse as i sat here and asked myself over and again where i stand here. Thank God for the conviction that the Spirit can bring to us through His word. This is the reason God blessed us with the Spirit. He gave us His Son to bring us Truth and be the example of what God intended for us in the first place, then blesses us with the Spirit that will live inside of us.

I know that we all love Jesus and i am not for one second trying to degrade the love and respect we have for Him, but why don’t we listen to what He said about the Holy Spirit. I know there are a lot of things that we don’t adhere to, but this one is crazy. We tend to act like somewhere in the Bible Jesus said that we should miss Him and be upset that we all missed out on seeing Him in person and we should just want to get to heaven to be with Him. The Bible says completely different.

Take a look at the first chapter of Acts and John fourteen. What does Jesus say there? He tells of what power the Spirit will give us. Jesus is saying that He was here to walk with and among us to give us the example of what God intended, but now God has blessed us with the Spirit that lives in us.

I constantly want to ask people why they call out to God to “be with them” or “come into this place”. Do you think the God forgot who you are or maybe just misplaced the directions to the church? Come on people. God is not only all around you, all the time, He is (if you are a Christian) most literally inside of you. We need to start giving recognition to the power that lives in us. Just imagine, if we took the time we put into these meaningless actions and spent them on building ministries, reaching those who are lost, helping those who are in need... how much more of an impact would we make. If we just stopped trying to get full of the Spirit for ourselves and maybe put some focus on sharing the Spirit that is already in us, what would be the outcome?

I think a major problem is that we think that the church or our Christian friends  are like a Holy Spirit gas station. They can fill us up when we need it. This is not the case. Those two things are Knowledge stations. With these we get to learn and study the Bible and get to know God better, but the Spirit Grows in us when we allow Him to use.... US! 

We have got to start evaluating our lives daily by the fruit of the Spirit. Every action we make and every word we speak. If you are a Christian, it is not at all how full of the Spirit you are, it is are you allowing the Spirit to work. We can not have just a little bit of the Spirit. If you do not evidence the fruit in you life, it is not because you are running low on the Spirit and just need to be filled back up. It is because you are hindering the Spirit and need to get out of the way.

I would encourage everyone to study the Spirit and see if there is evidence in you life that He is at work in you, or moreover if you are allowing the Spirit to work in you. A fabulous book on this subject is ‘Forgotten God’ by Francis Chan. God bless.