Living as Those Made Alive

 

 

If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

 —Galatians 5:25

 

There is a difference between being born again of the Holy Spirit, and actually drawing your life from Him. Many have made the born-again experience such a “one-time event” that they overlook its expected outcome in their lives. Walking in the Spirit is available to all who are born again. They can draw upon the power of the Holy Spirit instead of continuing to navigate life in the flesh.

 

“Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:11).

 

We are dead to sin and reborn as new creations in Christ. Our spiritual potential has been made alive in Christ. As born-again Christians filled with the Holy Spirit, we have received the gift to understand the mysteries of God (1 Corinthians 2:7-12). We no longer have to be limited in our understanding but can be renewed in the spirit of our mind (Ephesians 4:23). We can now pray in the Spirit and not be limited to our own thinking because we have received the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 14:14-16).

 

Many Christians never begin to live by the Spirit. They are forgiven and saved but continue to live by their limited understanding. They haven’t grown in spiritual understanding of the new life they have received in Christ. And this completely goes against the purpose of the new birth!

 

“For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:9-14)

 

There is so much spiritual truth Paul prays for us in these verses! He makes it absolutely clear what it means to live by the Spirit. He prays that we are filled with wisdom and understanding of God’s will and that we are always increasing in our knowledge of Him. He prays that we are empowered with all of God’s power. Jesus has delivered us from the power of darkness!  And His deliverance should make huge differences in our lives. Joy and peace and patience and praise and walking worthy of God! We have His power but so often we don’t exercise what we have received because we haven't believed it. We are new in our born-again spirits! We should not settle for anything less! 

 

Paul prays for us in Ephesians 3:16.

 

“That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man.”

 

When you walk in the Spirit, you draw out the new life you have received in Christ. You draw from God’s power. You draw on the wealth of His riches in glory. You are strengthened with His might. You are dead to the old man and made alive in Christ.

 

 

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