So go ask someone who hasn’t fasted before if they want to fast with you.  Undoubtedly you’ll hear one of the following answers:

- I can’t, I have a condition
- I’m not able to, my body just isn’t capable
- Sure, I’ll stop watching TV, or eating chocolate, or eating meat, or listening to rock music or fill in the blank

Are those the right answers?  When God says fast why do we come back with these answers?  Let’s lay this out, what’s up with food?

Let’s look at some passages:

1.  Adam and Eve – what caused them to sin – food, they chose food over God

2. Esau – Esau sold his birthright for a single meal

3.  Sodom – besides her obvious sins, look at this verse in Ezekial 16:  ‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. 

4.  Manna from heaven – God provided all the food the Israelites needed via Manna yet their people still grumbled, they weren’t satisfy with being sustained via food, they wanted more!  God gave them more and killed many in response.

I believe something with food is a sign or symptom of a heart problem (a spiritual inside problem).  I believe it relates to our flesh and body and not our spirit and soul.  If we are totally controlled by food, then we are controlled by our flesh.  I’m more convinced everyday that food totally controls people’s lives and I’m one of them!  Let’s look at some more verses to clarify this:

1.  Philippians 3:19 – 19Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things.  – It seems that for some people they make their god their stomach it controls their life, this is Paul referring to people who are enemies of the cross of Christ!

2.  1 Corinthians 6:13″Food for the stomach and the stomach for food”—but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. – Here Pual is talking about sexual immorality but relating it back to food.  The stomach is meant of food and food for the stomach – that’s it, it has a purpose, not to control our lives!  Just like in this verse the body is not for Sexual Immorality but for the Lord!

What I believe these verses mean is that God has to be our Lord and nothing else.  Anything else is an idol, anything else we are worshipping.  God also uses food analogies to represent this, He wants to be our sustance, He wants to be our strength, and more.  Let’s look at some more verses:

John 6 – Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty…..  I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

Deuteronomy 8:3 – He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD

Then what does God do with a person when they open the door for him to come in:

Rev 3:20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. — They eat together!!

What does Jesus tell Peter about his flock?  Feed my sheep!

Fasting is abstaining from food.  It’s hard but it identifies in us who is leading our lives, the flesh or the spirit.  Before fasting you should legitimately be healthy enough to do so.   But the vast, vast majority of people can fast, and can fast easily.  When you fast your body, your flesh will scream at you and show you how powerful it really is and how much it controls our lives.  It is scary.  So fasting rule 1 – it’s all about food!

More to come on types, lengths, prayer, and power of information to come.

In some ways I hate the modern church.  But the church is the bride of Christ and it is not smart to be against the things God loves so dearly.  So let me say the truth – I love the church, but I hate some of the stuff that goes on in churches, and it’s really not the churches that are the problem, it’s people and the church responding to what people want.

The problem is that here in America we like to have it our way and we like it bigger and better.  Take for instance 7-11.  You can get a 44-ounce Coke and a doughnut for $2.  It is totally irresponsible for 7-11 to serve a 44-ounce Coke and a doughnut for any cost.  It’s absolutely terrible for the body.  But it’s not really 7-11’s fault as some would have you to believe.  7-11 only sells what people buy.  If no one bought anymore soda and doughnuts, then 7-11 would stop selling soda and doughnuts.  And so it is with the church….

We demand churches to serve us 44-ounce sodas and doughnuts and then we wonder why were spiritual fat.  Or even worse – we call a good church a church that serves 44-ounce sodas and doughnuts when really that’s not a good church!  We’d never call 7-11 a health food store!  7-11 churches seek to entertain and to grow.  That is the highest priority.  Give people what they want – short sermons that can be summarized by “I’m OK and you’re OK, let’s just not rock the boat.”  Highly entertaining audio and visual shows also come with these groups.  Listen there’s nothing wrong with awesome worship, it’s the heart behind it.  Then there’s the book deals and conferences and more.  People that go to these churches can boast about how much their church is doing, and how fast it’s growing, and about the cool books their Pastor has written. 

But I would argue a good church starts with obedience to the Lord and His commands.  If God says jump we should jump.  What if God called a church to feed all of a city.  It would be a novel idea at first but as soon as it got hard, as soon as it cost something, people would start leaving or saying things like “God’s calling me to another church.”  Go look at scripture and see where God calls people to another church – look at Acts 13:  

1In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. 2While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

Leaving a church involved a work of the Holy Spirit – it involved much fasting and prayer.  It involved praying over the people when they left and it involved a movement of these people to another work of God.  This is far different than what we see today, people leaving churches for fleshly reasons, without prayer and fasting, and without any notice, to move on to another unsuspecting church.  Listen – God may move you to another church, but is it confirmed through God speaking to you, did you pray and fast?  Did you leave on good terms for another work of God?  Did the church see this as a work of God and pray for you on the way out? 

So what does a good church look like?  It’s a church that obeys and follows good.  A church that holds scripture as inerrant and is followed closely.  A good church may be big or small.  A good church is hard.  It costs you something to go there because they follow the bible and the bible asks you to be imitators of God.  Look at Mark 10:45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

A good church expects something from you – it knows that you must grow in the Lord.  You grow in the Lord by serving and not being served.  A good church will expect  you to read your bible and commit to community with other believers in small groups.  A good church will probably have a role in missions or serving the community.  A good church will have church discipline as part of their governance. 

Finally – A good church serves the true and Living God and fears Him, and not man.  Luke 12:5  But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.

1 Peter 2:11-12 says:  11Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 12Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

Some versions say dear friends, I urge you, as “exiles” in the world.  This really struck me.  If we’re exiles, then where do we live?  In Babylon?  If as a metaphor we were to think deeply about this, then how should we be living differently?  Would we let Babylon influence our ideas?  Would we send our kids to Babylonian schools to be taught in Babylonian ways?  Think about it, if we’re waiting to go home we would live in Babylon but not become Babylonians.  This has some serious implications – implications that require a balanced approach to life.

Other verses talk about being a Jew to a Jew and gentile to a gentile so that some may be saved.  And on Mars Hill, Paul clearly relates to the Greeks to make a Gospel presentation.  If you don’t know the world you can’t relate to the world – so in balance you have to take these 2 sides and really be convicted about how to live.

For me I think this means I’m going to turn to Jesus for answers, and not have a will of my own in these matters.  For areas like schooling for the kids, I’m convicted that they are supposed to be in public schools, but I’m also convicted I need to study up and start training my kids.  This means devotionals and training, and reading God’s work together.  But I’m still letting them go to public schools.  It’s going to be interesting.

For me in life this means that I’m not pulling myself out of the world, but I’m also not heading to Las Vegas for any family vacations anytime soon.  Also going to stick to living an honorable life, avoiding inappropriate movies and the more.  So – next time you read words about living like aliens and strangers, think about what it would be like living as an exile in Babylon and then apply it here.

You’ll have to excuse me but I’m having a hard time finding a reason to blog.  It seems very self-focused, which I have enough problem with like it is   I’ll be checking in ocassionally, but unless I can glorify Jesus with this I may can it.  But this blog is supposed to be a journey in the life of Christ so maybe soon I’ll jump back in.  Until then, bye.

I got to speak today and give my testimonty about my life to the Mountain Springs Youth.  I don’t want to go long today, but the point of my sermon is that everyone has a God shaped void in them - a yearning for the way and the truth and life.  You can try to fill it with stuff from this world – but it doesn’t satisfy.  But people pursue the world and it doesn’t lead to life. 

19Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things.

I have learned that Jesus is the way and that matters more than anything.  And it fills the void in our hearts.  You can believe it or try to fill it with this world – but the world will leave you unsatisfied and broken.  It’s true wheter you believe it or not.

In Him!

Scott

We are in a weird place in America.

You can say whatever you want, entertain people, give people exactly what they think need and tell them exactly what they want to hear.  The church grows, and everybody says wow – look at all the great things that this church is doing.  They’re growing so God must be happy with them – they must be doing God’s will.  The Pastors write books – everyone gets famous, and all the meanwhile congregants are not growing in the Lord, and and others yet are not even getting saved!

Let’s look at scripture:

For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.  2 Timothy 4:3

What does this do for sound Bible teaching churches?  People are used to being entertained, they are used to having their felt needs met.  What happens when they go to a sound church that teaches sound doctrine without the entertainment value?  What happens?  People leave, they don’t stay.  Why would they when the entertainment factor is not there.

What happened  to following God and believing in the Word of God.  You’ll hear – we are following God, we go to church every Sunday.

We even have churches appealing to people’s needs to help people and be radical like Christ, I’ll give you a hint without helping their search engine stats it is the em__g_n_ church.  They act just like a church that should be following Jesus – except they forgot Jesus.  These churches are tricky and they are stealing our youth.  You want to test this – go listen to a Mars Hill Grandville (emergent church) then go listen to Mars Hill Seattle (aka Bible teaching church).  You’ll hear one talk about the Gospel and Jesu and then you’ll hear one talk about how you can better yourself with lot of common sense and a few scriptures tossed in for grins.  Go test it.  It’s remarkable.

So – what are we going to do.  Let’s look at a passage in Matthew 24:24

24For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible. 25See, I have told you ahead of time.

 26“So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the desert,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. 27For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 28Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.

So there it is – chose a chuch that teaches the word of God, even one that teaches line by line and verse by verse.  Stay there, serve there, tithe there, lead there.  Grow into a mighty women of God.  And do not give into the false prophets of the age.

Church is defined by preaching and teach of the Word of God, and Belief that Jesus is the Son of God and came to earth to die for our sins.  They seek God and follow God, and may be small or large – they are not judged by the number of people!  Go looking for one of these churches.

Well OK – I need to tell you abou the second half of this life ruining series of events.  It started when my buddy Brett ran into some people who know lots of NFL players.  Matter of fact, one of them is agent to over 50 of them and lives here in Colorado Springs.  The started talking, and Brett started telling them about our church and children’s center.  They bought on to the vision right away and said we want to help, can we do a community work event at your children’s center with some of our NFL guys.  This started the second event – the NFL community work day.

Essentially 100+ people and a bunch of NFL guys came to improve the Children’s Center site so that we can expand from 15 to 202 children we serve.  It involved setting up playing fields, putting fences up around the playground, and doing other site improvements.  Well it was a work of God – all sorts of people got tied into the vision and we ended up receiving about $80,000 in donated time/materials in landscaping/fencing and in one day the site was transformed.  Click here to see the news.  Click here to watch the time lapse video and see pics.  The whole event was amazing, why are all these people doing work at Springs of Life, this little dinky children’s center and church in the center of Colorado Springs?  Well – it’s called God, and when he moves, get on board.

We’ve had some criticism that we’re not doing the work of God – that it looks more like feeding the poor, or evangelizing, and that this couldn’t be the work of God.  But how can you deny a pillar of fire like this one!  We had Colorado senators at the event.  Why, why, why.  Because God is working here.  My favorite story in all of this is that we are praying for workers for the harvest fields as it says in the bible.  I get this email from a guy name Wade with this group called Perpetual Motion.  He says – God told us to go to Colorado and serve wherever we can – this is right in the middle of the MSC event.  He shows up with 3 of his friends and they are an amazing group of on fire for the Lord kids who worked 9 days at Springs of Life doing everything from digging post holes to serving congressman.  Some of our own people missed the call (most did not) but these guys God called all the way from Wisconsin to join in the work – God is always at work!  Go look at the video above and see what I mean.  In 1-day we renovated our entire site, got marketing and promotion for our children’s center (which grew 5 kids since then), met all sorts of amazing minsitries and Colorado leaders to partner with – and had a blast in the process.  This ruined my normal Christian life because God showed up in such a powerful way different than what I expected.  The gospels are like this though – the first will be the last it says.  Whoever wants to save his live will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.  The bible is upsidedown of what we think, and I’m starting to see it.

It starts with building a relationship with God, then seeking him and learning how to hear his voice, then obeying God even if it’s unconventionally and especially if it’s hard.  God is always at work – and He wants you to join in His work, not our own.

I’m next going to go into what this means because many have taken this type of experience as I’ve had and gotten off track by calling the church something it isn’t or getting involved in emergent type stuff.  More to come.

Well – it’s officially happened.  I’ve been ruined for normal church life.  I define normal church life as going to church and living a good life.  That’s over for me.  My church life is ruined.

It all started by a season of learning to obey God which I’m still probably only a C+ with.  But I learned in this season that obeying and following God is more important than following the normal patterns of life.  For example – if God says finish this construction project by this date – then that overrides going to bed at an early hour.  During this time, my partner in crime Brett and I met at the church one morning at 3:00 am to get 4 hours of drywalling in before work one morning.  This breaks patterns of life because who in their right mind would do this – but who cares, if God inspires it, do it, even if it means getting up early or going to be late.  We get in these areas of our life that we box in and say “God – you can’t work here” then God works here and we say – that can’t be the work of God – and it’s exactly the work of God and we miss it! 

I see this most in areas of time – people don’t like to change their schedule.  I see this even with family/tasks/chores, etc.  IE – I can’t join you for this event because I have to finish painting my bathroom.  Or – God can’t want me to do that over spending time with my family Or -even in vacations.  I can’t do it, I’ll be on vacation that week.  But if God is moving, get on board!  it will be far greater than anything you could have possibly planned.  One caveat to that, it’s important to hear God because God maybe telling you to do something else – but you have to try and hear him!

I’m ruined from the ordinary for following him this last season.  It started with Dan saying we want to do an outreach to the community this summer.  We needed a life group to help us out – we wanted to reach out to 5,000 homes in our area.  We contacted Mountain Springs Churchfirst and they said – we were looking for an in town mission for our missions team to work on.  That morphed into a 3-day outreach event that culminated in a “community blessing” event in which single parents received free oil changes, car washes, clothes, facials and we had all sorts of activities for the kids.  We saw all sorts of miracles.  We handed out 5,000 door hangers containing evangelism tracks, info on the community blessing, info on the church, and more.  I walked with kids going door-to-door for 3-days and it was amazing.  Many people said that we were the first Christians who they had seen door-to-door, and they had only seen Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses.  The Outreach event was awesome and the door-to-door was a work of God.   We ended up doing everything including feeding 70 people for 3-days for  $1,000.  This started the ruining of my normal Christian life.  The next event was even bigger.  More to come.

Let’s move on to verse 12

12Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. 13For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, 14because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

This summarizes everything we have already talked about.  How do you put the death the misdeeds of the body?  “By the Spirit” We have an obligation to live by the Spirit since we are sons of God.  The Spirit inside us helps us fight our sins.  But I will say this again, we are responsible for some part of this.  It says The Spirit leads us and we must respond. 

I was seeking God one time and had fasted for several days and then was asking God to answer some questions for me.  I would say something like “Should I stay at my current job?  This was while I was working in the business world.  And God answered “Get rid of this one particular sin in your life.”  And I would ask a different question and get the same answer.   From my experience God sometimes will not speak to you because of a sin you have in your life.  Or He will answer a different question than you are seeking Him on.  We see Him do this several times in the new testament, once with Nicodemus and once with the women at the well.  We have an obligation to live by the Spirit to fight sin in our life.

Moving into verse 15

15For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.^[g] And by him we cry, “Abba,^[h] Father.” 16The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.

This is a very important set of verses because it basically gives you affirmation if you are saved or not.  It says that the Spirit testifies that we are God’s children – that we are saved.  If we are not God’s children, whose children are we?  Ya, and that wouldn’t be good.  So let me ask all you out there.  Does the Spirit affirm you are saved?  Look deep inside right now, are you saved?  Only God can search a person’s heart and know if he’s saved or not, but I sometimes worry about Christians and how we look so much like the world that there is going to be some shock for Christians when they die.  It’s a deep fear of mine.

I remember finally knowing that I was saved when I began hearing the Spirit and knowing the Spirit was working in me.  I wondered a long time if I was saved.  I had an intellectual conversion to Christ, but I was  not sure exactly when I was saved, but right here right now I know the Spirit is alive and working in me, I hear Him all the time and it gives me great confidence that God is who He says he is.  Wouldn’t it be horrible to be in a religion (which I don’t think Christianity is) and not know for sure what happens when you die?  Not having a promise like the Holy Spirit?  I would be terrified of death if I didn’t have the Spirit of God in me.  Prior to being a Christian, I used to be terrified of flying because I was terrified of death, but soon after I got saved, this all went away.  Death is not the end for those who are in Christ Jesus! 

Lastly verse 17

17Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

We are heirs of the King of King and Lord of Lords, isn’t that good news!  This is very exciting, we can cry out to our Father and as he promised, he will be there for us.  But wait – there’s something else in this verse, “if we share in His sufferings, we may also share in His glory.”  You see, in God’s kingdom, suffering is a thing that grows us in our faith.  I can head down a whole separate path with this one but I won’t, but for all those subscribing to the prosperity gospel, the “God is our genie,” gospel this verse seems to say a little something different.

So – practically, how do we live by the Spirit?  I’m going to give a few places to start:

1)  Accept Jesus Christ as your Lord Savior.  If you haven’t done so, do it right now.  Believe right now that Jesus Christ came to earth and lived a life free of Sin.  That He was crucified and died for our sins and that after 3-days, He rose to life for our justification.  Tell God you’re sorry for sinning against Him and ask Him for His forgiveness.  Tell Him you are ready to be His follower and give your life to Him.  Now – smile, you’re a Christian.  I hope you have joy in your heart, you’ve crossed over from death to life.  Don’t forget to talk to a ministry team member after service, we’ll setup a time to get you baptized.

2)  Believe that we have the Spirit living in us and that He’s working right now.  Believe that God is always at work!

3)  Ask God for wisdom, let’s pray it right now.  God – show me how I can live a life by the Spirit.  He will show you, He is faithful, He desires a deeper relationship with you.  He’ll show you the way.

4)  Become a disciple of Christ.  This sounds so obvious.  But I see so many Christians who get stuck on First base – they get saved and that’s as far as they want to go.  Christ has so much more for us!  He came so that we may have life.  There’s no life if we accept Christ and then don’t do anything with it.  You’ll be more miserable than if you had stayed a non-believer.  He wants a relationship with you!  Being a disciple means reading your bible, frequently; praying, seeking more knowledge of God.  Start tomorrow with a quiet time to the Lord.  You make time each day to brush your teeth or take a shower.  How much more important is it to spend time with the Living God!  I’m not telling you to not brush your teeth or take a shower, but I am telling you that spending time with Lord is probably more important.  Let’s look at Hebrews 11:6 6And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

God rewards those who earnestly seek Him.  It has taken some time for me to get there, but I spend time with the Lord almost every morning.  I desire it, I crave it, if I don’t spend time with the Lord I feel like a guy without a coat about ready to head out into a blizzard.  Spend time with the Lord and you will not be disappointed, He will teach you who He is and all about how He works.

5)  And I’ll conclude with this.  Look for the work of the Spirit in your life and be prepared to change your life to accommodate God at His prompting.  His Spirit is alive and working in you.  He’s going to initiate works in your life and He’s going to ask you to respond.  Don’t worry, He’s not going to ask you to do anything crazy, at least not right away  J.  I was so concerned after I got saved that He was going to send me to Africa because I didn’t want to go, now I don’t think it’s such a bad idea.  That’s the work of the Spirit.  He works at the level of your relationship.  But if you don’t respond when He initiates a work, that’s where much of the pain in a Christian life starts.  Look for the work of the Spirit, and join Him in His work.  You’ll be blessed.

So let’s pray.  Heavenly Father, we come today and ask for more of your Spirit in each of our lives.  We need You and ask You to teach us Your ways.  We submit ourselves unto You and ask that You teach us how to live a life by the Spirit.  We also ask that You would show any areas of our lives where we are not allowing You to work.  We ask that You would bring down these strongholds and work powerfully in our lives.  We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ.  Amen.

After one of my sermons last year, I got blasted by a visitor who was telling me I was preaching all wrong.  He told me that only the Spirit changes people and by me reading scripture that tells people to do stuff, I was off base.  I had just preached and was not in the mood to discuss  it so I let it go.  But my brain never really lets things go, so I pondered, and pondered what he meant, and I believe he was in some ways right, but mostly wrong.  Yes it’s true that when you get saved God does some immediate sanctification, but if He was responsible for all the changes, then we’re really just robots in some giant chess game.  We would say “I’m ok with murdering people, because the Spirit hasn’t changed me from that yet.”  That’s just foolishness.    So I’ve been pondering deeply lately what is the role of the Spirit and what is my role for changes in my life.  Here’s what I came what I believe: 

I believe that the Spirit of God initiates a work, or a change, and that it’s your job to respond to the initiated work.  I heard a great analogy the other day.  It’s like a person riding a bike, where the movement of the bike illustrates your spiritual growth.  If the bike is moving fast this would represent your spiritual growth being very fast.  In this picture the Holy Spirit is controlling the left leg and the person is controlling the right leg.  The Holy Spirit initiates a work by pushing the pedal down, and your pedal goes up for you to push down on.  Now, if you don’t respond you go forward a little bit but then stop in your spiritual walk.  However, if you respond, it’s like you pushing the pedal down and it’s the Holy Spirits turn again and He always pushes right away.  So if you respond to the Holy Spirit’s initiation, then you can have very rapid growth in your spiritual walk.

But this is where people screw it up.  The Holy Spirit says “read your bible,”  and you say “I’m too busy” and then the Holy Spirit says “fine, I’m not initiating a work again until you respond.”  And wam!  Your spiritual growth is stalled and you live a life different from what God has for you, and it’s not victorious.  The Holy Spirit frequently does this with sin in people’s lives – he says stop doing XYZ sin and you need to respond or He won’t act again and you also may come under God’s discipline.  God once told me to take a Sabbath day off each week.  I half-heartedly obeyed.  I like to take a day of rest on Sundays, and one week I decided I had to mow my lawn one Sunday afternoon after church.  I got started and things went OK for about 5 minutes, then I pushed the mower and my back went out and I was literally and fittingly brought to my knees in agonizing pain.   I was floored for the rest of the day and could barely walk for the next week.  I learned a lesson from God that day.  When the Holy Spirit acts, we need to respond.  If we don’t respond we may get stalled in our Christian walk.  When this happens we can’t beg God to move in certain areas of our lives, we need to obey and follow God’s plan which He initiates through the Holy Spirit.

Let’s move on, verse 9:

9You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

This is the good news for those who know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.  Even though we are going to die, our spirit is alive with God for eternity because of Christ’s Righteousness.  Verse 11 – And we will have life in our mortal bodies as well – and this doesn’t refer to our mortal bodies living forever.  This refers to us being alive in Christ, Jesus said – I came so that they may have life and have it to the full.  Christ came so we may have a victorious life in this world and after we die.  This is great news!  But here’s also where we get off track again.  What does it look like to have a full life?  Our Lord and Savior, was homeless and poor, he was a common man, a carpenter in fact.  He was abused, betrayed and crucified.  I can hear y’all now going great, I wonder if I can sneak out without anyone seeing me.  But the point of me saying this is we have to think about the way God thinks about “living life to the full.” 

Please hear me right here – I’m not saying that nice cars, and big houses are bad.  What I’m trying to say is that God just sees things differently than we do and I’d argue that living by the Spirit will bring way more peace and joy than living for things in this world.  I was reading Ecclesiastes the other day and it says in verse 6:2 2 God gives a man wealth, possessions and honor, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires, but God does not enable him to enjoy them, and a stranger enjoys them instead.  and then it says in verse 3:13 13 That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God.

Is it possible that God controls happiness!  And do we tend to instead or pursuing God – we pursue the good things of good.  I would argue that pursuing God will result in Happiness and not the vice versa.  And how do we do this – by loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and living by the Spirit of God.  We may end up with nice things in this life, but we got them by pursuing God and not pursuing  nice things.