Living by the Spirit

 DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS

LIVING BY THE SPIRIT

Rom 8:9-11

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

Paul has more to say about this contrast between living according to our sinful nature and living according to the Spirit. However, first, we need to see that we do not live according to our sinful nature because we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior and the Father gave him the Spirit to send to us. We have this paraclete, this comforter, this Holy Spirit dwelling within us and because of that God lives in us. It is also affirming or assuring that we have the Spirit and therefore we belong to Christ. Now the fact that we belong to Christ and we have the Spirit dwelling within us, our bodies are dead because of sin, yet are spirit is alive because of the righteousness of Christ. If it is because of sin that our bodies are dead, it started with Adam. This gives us the thought that had Adam not sinned his body would not have died, he was created to be an immortal being who was in complete fellowship with his creator, God. However, our creator, the Almighty God did not intend for his creation to die, but to live for eternity in his presence so that He might walk with us in the cool of the day, as he did with Adam. Therefore, because he is God, he knew Adam would do wrong, and thus his body would have to die because of sin. But, Jesus, the second Adam, came to bring us back into the right relationship with the Father, and so not only is our spirit alive, but by the same power that Jesus’s body was raised from the dead, that power will raise our bodies from the dead and we will forever be as God intended, immortal beings living in His presence. The aches of pains of this aging body remind us that at some time we are going to have to lay it down for the last time, for death with come to this mortal body, yet we also are confident that when we lay it down, we will no longer be in it, but our spirit which remains alive with be with our Lord. However, that too is only a temporary situation as one day God will raise our bodies, in whatever form they are in or not in, His almighty power, the same power with which he spoke everything that is into existence, and which raised Jesus will bring immortal life in our bodies and we will ascend in a physical form as Jesus ascended into heaven to be forever with God. Of course, there is more to this story, as one day a new earth and new heaven, a new creation will exist with a new city so large that all men who lived according to the Spirit will have a dwelling place, forever and ever.