Holy Spirit: God in Us
Emmanuel: God with us, Holy Spirit: God in us! The moment we believe in Jesus Christ we receive the Holy Spirit. This is the same Spirit that lived in Christ, the same Spirit raised Jesus from the dead! He now lives in every child of God.
There is tremendous power available if the believer chooses to submit and let the Spirit have complete control. We will read and meditate on a section of Romans chapter 8. I want to encourage you to stop and read Romans 8:1-17. Take your time and let God speak to you!
Romans 8:9-11
But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.) 10 And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. 11 The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.
I want to talk to all of you for a minute. I am aware that my devotions go to a wide range of people. What I mean, many of you come from different backgrounds of denominations, teachings and beliefs. Needless to say this can be challenging but I also find it refreshing. With this said, I want to ask you to be open to what God teaches us concerning the Holy Spirit. I am aware that within the different denominations and teachings, the lessons taught about the Holy Spirit can be strange or unfortunately not even taught. Therefore let’s look at God’s Word and let the Spirit teach us His truth!
Verses 9-11 are addressing those who have believed in Jesus. Therefore they were given the Holy Spirit. In verse 9 the Apostle Paul is contrasting a person with the Spirit and without. When you receive the Holy Spirit you are no longer controlled by your sinful nature/your flesh. You are controlled by the Spirit. He even goes so far to remind the readers, “if you don’t have the Spirit you don’t belong to Jesus at all.” As a follower of Jesus Christ, He lives within you! My friends this is a fact, this is what happened the moment you believed. Therefore when we let the Spirit control our minds it leads to life and peace. When we let our flesh control, it will lead us to death!
Yes, our bodies will die but the Holy Spirit produces eternal life. Just as the Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead, He will give all of God’s children eternal life. We are going to continue to study the Holy Spirit: God in us throughout this month. I pray that we will all be open to what the Spirit is teaching us.
Galatians 5:16
So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves.
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