Has God’s Spirit Taken Possession of You?
Good day to each of you reading this column—Before we get into the title above, let’s look at the importance of walking:
Walking can add minutes to your life. This gives you at 85 years old to spend an additional 5 months in a nursing home at $5000 per month.
I joined a health club last year, spent about $400 and haven’t lost a pound. Apparently, you have to go there.
The advantage of exercising every day is so when you die, they will say, ‘Well, he looks good, doesn’t he.’
And, we all get heavier as we get older, and why, there’s a bunch more information in our heads. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Here’s a question, when you read the Bible do you? a) skim the words b) read the words c) read and digest the words or d) read, then go back and re-read the words until you understand verses?
I found out that I am (d) since I read the chapter, then re-read again and then re-re-read again, but why? For my appetite, I want the meat of the word and not just the milk. In essence, I want my cake and eat it too, so I read to understand and get the depth of what the writer is expressing.
Turn with me to the letter of Romans chapter 8—I am using the Smith & Goodspeed version for this column. Paul, as you are aware is a warrior and he is defending the law and the spirit to the Jews and the Romans. Look at verse 2-4: For the life-giving law of the spirit through Christ Jesus has freed you from the law of sin and death. For though it was impossible for the Law to do it, hampered as it was by our physical limitations, God, by sending his own son in our sinful physical form, as a sin-offering put his condemnation upon sin through his physical nature, so that the requirement of the Law might be fully met in our case, since we live not on the physical but on the spiritual plane.
Wow! That’s pretty deep—But let’s slow down and ask the question, Are we physically or the spiritually minded? As you read further in Romans 8, Paul says for to be physically minded means death and to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Paul elaborates by saying that physically minded folks are hostile toward God, refuse to obey God’s laws and physically can’t please God.
Take heart for Paul says that you are not physical but spiritual, if God’s spirit has really taken possession of you; for unless a man has Christ’s spirit, he does not belong to Christ. We have hope and assurance—Look below
Look at verses 10-12—But if Christ is in your hearts, though your bodies are dead in the consequences of sin, your spirits have life in consequence of uprightness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead has taken possession of you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give your mortal bodies life through his Spirit that has taken possession of you. What an eternal life insurance policy!
This policy gets even better for all who are guided by God’s Spirit are God’s sons. Look at verses 16 & 17: The Spirit itself testifies with our spirits that we are God’s children, and if children, heirs also; heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, if we really share his sufferings in order to share his glory too.
We, as Christians, have suffered many trials, tribulations, and sufferings, but we did not endure what Christ endured—Each of us have had bad days, bad weeks and bad months, but they pass—Keep that in mind that Paul says what we suffer now is not to be compared with the glory that is to burst upon us. What is eighty years compared to eternity?
Do you hope for something that you see? Look at verse 24-25- But a hope that can be seen is not a hope, for who hopes for what he sees? But when we hope for something that we do not see; we wait persistently for it. Take a moment and dwell on these verses.
Have you ever prayed and felt that your thoughts made no sense? Is your prayer life weak? Do you allow the Spirit to help you in your prayers? Look at verses 26-28—In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit itself pleads for us with inexpressible yearnings, and he who searches our hearts knows what the Spirit means, for it pleads for God’s people in accordance with his will. NOT our will, BUT HIS WILL.
