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.) 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. 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.
Romans 8:9-11
We all like to be in control or is it just me?
In the passage above, Paul contrasts our natural state (sinful nature) with a life controlled by the Spirit. One leads to death, the other promises life. So why is it so easy to let my guard down?
When the “Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God” we have a personal responsibility to partner with the Spirit in our lives. To walk in the Spirit, it seems to me, is a daily decision. Consider this quote –
“The principle runs through all life from top to bottom, Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Salvation is provided as God’s free gift to each of us and we will only learn how to flourish, when we seek after Him with all our heart. Remember the last verse above, “God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.”
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