We receive the Spirit though our faith in Jesus. The Spirit is with us to guide us in this world. To guides us through all that we will encounter. Through all those times of joy and the times of sorrow. The times of success and the times of failure. Acts for God and acts against Him. Obedience and sin. The Spirit will bring us through it all.
“15For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” – Romans 8:15 (ESV)
I have to remember that I am now a child of God and He has sent the Spirit to dwell within me to get me through it. I have to know that regardless of the circumstance, with the Spirit as my guide, I have what is needed to experience the joy of the Father.
Now, without the Spirit I will continue to walk this world as a slave to the world. I will find no peace in the world. I will be consumed by my sinful deeds. I will face the wrath of God and not the love of the Father.
“13For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” – Romans 8:13 (ESV)
When I am consumed by sin, I will die with those sins. Yet as I have received the Spirit and live by the Spirit, my sin does not consume me. I shed the sin. I put to death the sinful deeds in exchange for the deeds in line with the love and glory of God. I received the Spirit and the sin does not stick to me it is put to death as opposed to me being put to death.
We are not able to move forward in security without the Spirit filling us. Oh, yes we might find moments of reprieve from the sin, but our lives are still filled to brim with it and there is no escape. But when we receive the Spirit, we put our sinful deeds to death and are now filled in its place with the glory of the LORD and will join Him in heaven, the house He built for His family.
What is your answer to the sin in your life? Are you hopeful that you will overcome the sin and somehow make it? What if you were to accept Christ as your savior, allow the Spirit to dwell within you and put to death the sinful deeds in your life to be replaced with the glory of the LORD?
