Article - Living By the Spirit pt 1

Living By The Spirit pt 1

In our series “Strive for Perfection” we discovered that we don’t become perfect by our own efforts, but by allowing God to cleanse us and shape us. This is summed up in Galatians 5:16, which says: “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”

That’s why confession is so important, it restores the relationship by which we are being saved.

But how do we live by the Spirit? Many Christians are hazy on what that’s all about. We so often see our Christian live as a set of behaviours instead of as a personal relationship with God. But being a Christian is not living by Christ’s rules, it’s following Christ Himself. We can’t do that ourselves, but God in His incredible grace has chosen to live inside each of His people in order to change us from the inside out. We can only understand the things of God because God helps us to. We can only do the things of God because He helps us to. We are nothing without Him. We are helpless and depraved.

That might sound like a bit of a guilt trip or an unnecessarily harsh view of human nature. I’m not forgetting the fact that we are also wonderfully made and every human being is of infinite worth. I love to see good things in people and I’m often amazed by what I see in others – whether they know God or not.

But none of us can escape the corruption of our own sinful nature. We are at the same time wonderful and woeful! Recognising our own inability to be like Jesus is the first step to freedom. We need to live by the Spirit. We’ll talk about how we do that in coming weeks.