Live In The Spirit
“Then I will give them one heart and I will put a new
spirit within them and take the stony heart out of
their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh.”
Ezekiel 11:19
God says in order to serve Him we will need a new heart and a new spirit. Our old heart has been turned to stone by our own sinfulness and the cruelty of the world, as well as our spirits. Our old spirits are incapable of following and worshiping God. They are corrupted by our sinful nature inherited from Adam. They do not seek the things of God, but the things of the world. That old spirit can never lead us to God it leads us to sin. The Scriptures say we must test all spirits, for not all spirits are of God.[1] There are many evil and false spirits in the world, sent out to mislead us away from God. Therefore, before we begin to live in the spirit we must make sure the spirit we are living in is the Spirit of God.
So how do we know what spirit is leading us? Or how do we test the spirits? The Word says, “by this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God.” Therefore, any spirit that preaches the Word incarnate is of God and any spirit that preaches the world is of the world. Many Christians are being led astray by the enemy using the spirit of the world. They preach the riches of this world over the righteousness of God. You can witness this in the fact that many believe that the ends justifies the means. If a false testimony or witness brings in converts then it is acceptable. Not that they would condone dishonesty per se; but if it furthers the call it is ok. They would rather blame those who expose such false testimony than to rebuke the ones who have given this false testimony. When we become truly born again how we do things becomes as important, if not more important as what we do. They have their “sacred cows”, they ignore the sin and focus on the messenger. Forget the fact some sin has occurred, for them the ends justifies the means. In the
“I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall
not fulfill the lust of the flesh.”
Galatians 5:16
The apostle Paul says the way to overcome the sins of the flesh is to live in the Spirit. How do we live in the Spirit? First, we have to have the Spirit. We receive the Spirit when we surrender our lives to God. When we confess the Lord with our mouths and believe in our hearts He was raised from the dead we shall be saved.[3] At that time we are given the baptism of the Holy Spirit.[4][5] Therefore, faith is the key to our unleashing His power. I walk in the Spirit by faith. I no longer rely on my logic, on the wisdom of the world, or on what the people on television say. I put my faith in the Living God and Him only. I seek Him in all my decision-making. This has been what God has desired from the beginning, if Adam and Eve had sought direction from the Father, we would probably not be here today. Nevertheless, they relied on their own thinking and we see how that worked out. We should allow that Spirit to Guide us. If we do He will lead us into all righteousness and away from sin. With all the people that have been baptized why, is the fornication epidemic still raging? The key to “walking” in the Sprit is faith; we have no power because we have no faith. The Lord said, “if you have the faith the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains.
“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our
spirit that we are children of God”
Romans 8:16
God’s Spirit will touch our spirit and let us know that we are His. God sends out His Spirit for the purpose of guiding us. It is called the “Spirit of truth”.[6] He is to lead us into the truth. The truth is that we are the children of God, we are royalty. We are given the power to overcome the world and the sins of this world, even fornication. Let the Spirit of God transform you from a child of darkness into a child of light. Living in the Spirit is not something we do overnight. It is a matter of changing not only how we think and believe, but how we live. We are no longer to live for ourselves but for the Father. Our personal selfish desires no longer rule over us. We are no longer slaves to our passions and foolish pleasures but slaves to righteousness.[7] The Spirit, if allowed will compel us to follow righteousness. Throughout the scriptures the Spirit is spoken of as compelling whom God chooses to righteousness. It will compel us if we get out of the way and surrender to the Spirit of God. The Word says we are children of light, we need to walk as such.[8]
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