It's superman

DEVOTION

ROMANS

IT’S SUPERMAN

Rom 8:5-11

5 Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7 the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. 8 Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. 9 You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

NIV

Again we deal with the contrast between the sinful natural and the spiritual nature, or the mind that is set what the sinful nature desires and the mind that is set of what the Spirit desires. This is the key to the whole issue of being saved or not. It is not about if we sin we are condemned, because although we have our mind set on what the Spirit desires, we mess things up or slip into some unrighteous thought, or react inappropriately, say a wrong thing, or act in manner that does not glorify God. However, our mind is not set on wanting what the sinful nature wants, in fact, we find it despicable when we have those moments which would be defined as sin. We are sickened by the fact that we failed to maintain control of our mind, or kept ourselves focused on what the Spirit desires. Just because the Spirit dwells within us, just because of having the Spirit of Christ and we belong to Christ does not mean we become overtaken like some mindless being, who can only think, speak and act by some mind-meld process by the Spirit, that he has taken control of our mind and we have no thoughts other than his. It is rather a process by which we yield to the prompting of the Spirit. We know the word of God, we have hidden much of it is our heart or mind. When faced with situations we have the free will to think on our own, or to allow the Spirit to prompt us to think another way. We do not want to yield to our sinful nature, but from time to time it rears its ugly head, and we fail to listen to the voice of the Spirit. Yet our mind is set to listen to the Spirit, we want to do what he prompts. We know this is the only way to live, and to life. That old sinful nature, if we live according to it, we will surely die, not just the body, but our spirit as well. But because we have our mind set on the Spirit’s desires we will live in that way and we will have life eternal. This eternal life is not just in the spirit, but in the body as well. God has promised that if we are in Christ and the Spirit of Christ is in us, because Jesus was resurrected from the dead, which is the death of his body, we too will be resurrected. Our bodies will be resurrected as Jesus’s was and we will be transformed from perishable to imperishable, from corruptible to incorruptible, from mortal to immortal. We will be in a glorified state as Jesus is. We will be able to travel faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a train, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, in that sense we will be superman, living in the presence of God.