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.

“What does the Bible mean to Christians?”

2 Tim 3:16-17

All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.

A major problem that we have in the church right now is people wanting to disregard scripture. This is very upsetting to me. I hear many people say that it is just Jesus that they want and need. Now when I hear them say this, i can’t help but agree with the words, but unfortunately the words do not accurately portray what is being said here. Somewhere along the way, people started believing that simply saying some words and being dunked in water was enough to lock in a place in heaven. Some even went as far as doing good deeds and even doing ministry. Now on the other hand, we had groups of Christians who thought they could better Gods word by adding rules and regulations to live by. All of this is wrong.

What happened here?  We became lazy in our faith. We accepted exactly what others told us and/or made excuses not to listen to God because it was accepted by our peers, and even our church. Come on people. We are not talking about some minor insignificant part of our lives. When we become Christians it is suppose to take over our lives. It is suppose to be our lives. I understand that ignorance can have much to do with this, but what makes us ignore and even attack truth......selfishness. We are so caught up on what our faith will take away from us and make us do that we shut it down. We look at the Bible, and only see work and suffering and change and and maybe most of all the end of “our” life, ignoring the beginning of His life in us and His promises and His love. I’ll say it again, Come on people.

All of my previous rant was to bring us to the question “what does the Bible means to Christians?”  2 Tim uses the word “all” when describing “what scripture” was inspired by God. The greek word used was “ta panta”, which literally means all. So when this was written, the writer was very much trying to say that “All Scripture is inspired by God”. When are we as Christians going to start living by the Bible. Jesus is not going to accept the excuse of ignorance. If we are going to claim the name of Christ, than we better know what He’s about. We better believe the words He lived by and professed to be true. 

Following Jesus is not a simple claim to be made. Being a Christian is not putting in your time. If you have not accepted Jesus’ sacrifice that he made for you, asked Him to forgive you of your sin, been baptized(made a public affirmation of your faith), and have been filled with the Holy Spirit - then get on your knees. 

We are going to be talking about a lot of the topics i have mentioned so i don’t want to go too deep into them yet, but i do want to stress the importance of scripture. This blog is founded on and will continue on the belief that the Bible is the word of God.

Welcome

        Well hey there. This blog is the evidence of the convictions, struggles, peace, love and all out confusion i have went through and continue to go through in my relationship with God and journey to get to know Him better. I want this blog to serve as a place we can all come and voice opinion, state facts and even vent a little if needed. 

I feel it is very important to constantly be looking to deepen our faith. Christianity IS NOT a get out of jail free card. There is no magic words or special trick you can do that will hold you a place in heaven. This makes my heart sink as i see churches passing on these and other empty practices. It is very important that we call these things out for what they are. It is important that we become CHRIST’s Church. 

It is imperative that we become a people who are unabashedly devoted to our Savior who made it clear that we are His friends, not His servants. Christ does not judge you on your denomination or how many times you go to church or what you do for your community, and i could go on and on, no He judges us on our hearts. Are we devoted to His teachings, do our hearts break at injustice, can we stop ourselves from having to reach out to the lost or helping those in need? Does God inhabit our entire being, or have we blocked Him out or even limited Him in certain parts of our lives or maybe entirely. 

We are going to explore principles of living lives for God and not ourselves. I will try to post a new blog two or three times a week. What i want all of us to do is state our opinion and facts and especially scripture. But most important enter these conversations expecting to learn something new. Whether it will bring you closer to God or just give you a better understanding of an issue or even a person, try and keep a mind set on God.

I am very excited to get going and have a few topics that i am already working on, but if there is something that you would like me to talk about please email me and let me know. 

God bless,

BRENT