Spring has sprung! What a great time of year with all the new growth and expectations of summer’s excitement. I sense in my heart the same energy for the people of God and what is being brought to fruition to accomplish end-time events.
Considering what the Lord said about 2025 as a year of grace, the Spirit, and obedience, I want to continue to exhort in accordance with these thoughts. Also, remember that this is a year to “Get It Done!” Everything the Lord is speaking to the church is about both getting into position and being awakened to the confidence of what has been given freely to support it.
Romans 8:1 (NKJV) says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” When we think about spiritual things or even the Holy Spirit, thoughts can rush to our minds of past experiences with the move of the Spirit or what someone said concerning the Spirit. When you read that we are to walk or live according to the Spirit, it’s not an external experience but an internal reality that changes everything. Try to see this as not only walking according to the Holy Spirit, although this is true and part of what Paul is writing, but walking according to the recreated human spirit.
Paul concluded his first letter to the Thessalonians: “…sanctify you completely; and may your spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless…” We must remember that we are, first, spirit. We are not natural beings having a spiritual experience, but spirit beings having a natural experience. We are spirits that possess a soul and live in a body. This understanding must be our baseline to operate fully at the capacity and level God has purchased for us in Christ. Paul also states in the second letter to the church at Corinth that the person who has taken possession of the gift of Christ is made a new creation. This new creation is not of the flesh but of the spirit. The real you on the inside that gives life to the body when Jesus is made Lord, that spirit is given true, abundant life, possessing the fullness of Christ. If we are to accomplish the assignment, this is where and how it will be done: from the recreated spirit, not the flesh.
Romans 8:2 says, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.” When I live in the spirit, the recreated spirit, I go from trying to live right to attain God’s approval to already having and being made right. This perspective empowers us to carry out God’s will with power and authority.
The spiritual is not weird or goofy; that’s man’s error. Living spiritually is God’s original design and a place where the impossible is accomplished and supernatural events occur.
When we live in and by the spirit that has been given life in us by the Holy Spirit, we will have control over our thoughts. Romans 8:5-6 says, “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.” A mind that has been set is a mind that has been made up. Life is won or lost in the mind. This is why we must renew our minds, set our minds, or make up our minds with the Word of God. (Romans 12:2) When our minds are made up, and we have a thought contrary to the spirit of life that is in us, that thought must go through the filter of God’s word. Nothing is more confusing than indecision. When there is clarity in the mind, there is no limit. Remember to take thoughts captive! (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)
When we live according to the Spirit, the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead, we have clarity in temptation. Luke 4:1 says, “Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit.…” When we are full of truth, there is no room for deception. The only way to overcome a common temptation is to be in the Spirit. 1 John 4:6, “We are of God…by this, we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” Living in the Spirit gives you 20/20 vision. Every step and every decision come with abundant assurance as you are complete in Him, and He is in you! Hebrews 4:15-16, “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Live in Him!
Acts 17:28 “For in Him we live and move and have our being.” Life in the Spirit will produce confidence in trials. Matthew 11:28, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” And verse 30, “For my yoke is easy and My burden is light.” We have all gone through something or experienced a moment of chaos. This is not bad news. The error in the world is trying to weaken us and take us out. John 16:33 says, “In this world, you will have tribulation but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. Our victory is in Him! After the temptation, Jesus in Luke 4:14, “…returned in the power of the Spirit.” This is our example.
I want to make this last statement: I don’t read my Bible, pray, or attend church to get spiritual. I do these things because I am spiritual. I read, pray, and prioritize my time because it keeps my focus and awareness on what is true and real and what has power and strength for my life.