How You Livin’?
Graduation season is here. While congratulating a recent high school graduate on her achievement and impending move cross country to attend college, I asked the question “so, how do you feel?”. I was struck by the answer she gave me. She said “I’m ready to start my life!”. I interpreted that what she was really saying to me was, I want to be free, make my own decisions and live my best life! As adults, we may chuckle at that response, because we know that with new freedoms come new responsibilities and the need to make good choices. In Galatians 5:16-26, Paul instructed Christians that with their new life and freedom in Christ they needed the Holy Spirit to show them how to live a Godly life, and not live satisfying the desires of the flesh. I pray that you will be attentive to the leading of the Holy Spirit to guide you in living a life that is more and more like Christ each day.
So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. (Gal. 5:16-18) Paul pointed out to the Galatian Christians that there were competing natures within all believers, sinful (flesh) and divine (Spirit). The sinful nature was with each person from birth, but they had received the divine nature when they had been born again. These natures were in conflict with one another and guided the desires of believers to either evil or holiness. Paul urged believers to allow the Holy Spirit to lead them in holiness (in addition to blocking the desire to do whatever their flesh/sinful nature wanted). In verse 18, Paul warned the Galatian Christians against turning to the Law to battle their sin nature. For the antidote to the flesh would not be found in following the law, but in following the Spirit. Just as faith in Christ was necessary for salvation, faith in the Holy Spirit to lead them was necessary for their sanctification (being purified and totally freed from sin). I choose not to live in my old nature, but to let the Holy Spirit change me to become more like Christ.
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Gal. 5:19-21) Paul identified for the Galatians, the evidences of the flesh/sin nature acting within a person. Paul warned that a life continually governed by these acts (and others like these) was indicative of a person who was not saved and thus not a child of God. And if not a child of God, that person could not inherit the kingdom of God. I want to inherit God’s kingdom, but I can’t keep living in the flesh and expect to receive it.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. (Gal. 5:22-26) God is good enough and big enough to change everything in our nature with the fruit of the Spirit. As opposed to the actions associated with living by the flesh, the evidences of the Spirit operating in a person’s life are (1) virtues that have their source in God (love, joy, peace), (2) virtues that guide our interactions with one another (forbearance, kindness and goodness), and (3) virtues guiding our personal spiritual growth and conduct (faithfulness, gentleness and self-control). These things are produced in us by the Spirit as we walk step by step with it. Paul summarized that, in contrast to the works/sins of the flesh, there are no laws against these virtues. Moreover, Christians don’t need the Mosaic law, because the fruit of the Spirit actually fulfills the Law. We live by the Spirit when we allow the Holy Spirit to guide us and we stay in step with where and how it wants to lead us. I’m becoming more like Christ and the fruit of the Spirit in my life is evidence of that.
God wants us to grow to become more and more like our big brother, Jesus. He understands that we require growth and development as Christians to become like Jesus. And He has given us the Holy Spirit to guide us and teach us as we go through that growth and development process (called sanctification). God does not force us, we must choose to follow the Holy Spirit, listen to it and let it lead us in our daily lives. When we do, we are changed. We no longer live enslaved to the desires of the flesh. Instead, in Christ we are free to live by the power of the Spirit and become who God created us to be. So the question is…how you livin’?*
*(Hopefully it’s by the power of the Holy Spirit!)
Blessings,
Rev. Glenn
Comments? Questions? Encouragements? (Post them in the comments section below)
Also, listen to Erica Campbell (from Mary Mary), singing “I Luh God”
