So, if there is this battle between the flesh and the Spirit, how do we make sure the Spirit wins? How do we let something we don’t see lead? This devotion looks at the freedom and confidence the Spirit brings us and ways we can let Him lead us.
Nuggets
- Salivation breaks the bondage from Satan when he got Eve to believe that she previously had been in bondage to God.
- The guidance of the Spirit has been described as impulses.
- That impulse doesn’t automatically control us.
- More than just keeping the do’s and don’ts of the law, it needs to build character.
- Building character makes it about who we are and what we believe, not do’s and don’ts.
To read devotions in the Walk in the Spirit series, click the appropriate button below.
It can feel at times like there is a battle going on around us. As disciples, we need to let the Spirit lead. We gain freedom and confidence when we do. But how do we do that?
Let's Put It into Context
“God’s Spirit has shown you everything. His Spirit finds out everything, even what is deep in the mind of God” (I Cor 2: 10 CEV).
The Holy Spirit is Person in the trinity. Because we believed, we were sealed with the Holy Spirit.
God chose a part of Himself to come to earth to live, die, and rise again to fix all the broken things. He sends another part of Himself to be with us 24/7 — that is the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit has an important job to perform. We listed some of the duties in How Do We Grieve the Holy Spirit?
We gain salvation by the Holy Spirit taking us to the Father using the Son as the way. He does this by interpreting the scriptures for us.
To read related devotions, click on the appropriate button below.
The Spirit Gives Us Freedom
“But if you are led by the Spirit …” (Gal. 5: 18 CSB)
Some people see Christianity as only being a big ball of do’s and don’ts. They think that limits their freedom.
One reason for this thought is because we see freedom as ability to do anything we want. That is part of the definition. Freedom means “the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary).
The freedom gained by salvation is more Merriam-Webster’s second definition of freedom. It is the “liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another.” Some, though, see salvation just as changing from one master to another.
It isn’t. Salivation breaks the bondage from Satan when he got Eve to believe that she previously had been in bondage to God. “… Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?” (Gen. 3: 1 CSB). He was trying to get Eve to see that she did not have the freedom to choose whether or not to eat from that one tree.
One of the problems I see with society today is that many people do want the freedom to think and act as they choose, but they don’t want others to have that same freedom if they think differently. They want their choices to be “law.”
Society cannot be governed by conflicting laws. There has to be one official law of the land.
Those laws are better served to be based on God’s laws than Satan. “For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (II Cor. 3: 17 NLT).
Satan is the one who brought murder, theft, and all the other bad things into the world. That necessitated God giving us laws to bring us back to how He wanted us to live.
Once we live as God intended us, we do not need the laws. There will be no use for them because we will be living perfect lives.
Parkhurst put it this way. “Freedom is not exemption from government; rather is freedom a form of government. Anarchy, lawlessness, is the opposite of government; freedom is a special variety of government. Political freedom is civil authority vested in a particular way. Christian freedom is Divine authority vested in a particular way; so that in coming out from the bondage of a Jew into the freedom of a Christian, there is no inquiry to be had respecting the abatement of authority, but only respecting the new point at which authority is vested and the new manner in which it is exercised.”
We get that freedom when we ask Jesus to be our Savior and Redeemer. But we have to put Him on the throne of our hearts. We do that through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit Gives Us Guidance
Oh, yeah. It is hard to follow the guidance of the Spirit. Parkhurst described that guidance as impulses.
But Melvill reminded us that we aren’t machines. That impulse doesn’t automatically control us.
If we were controlled by those impulses, it would be dictatorship. God isn’t into dictatorship.
There is a big gap, however, of where we are and where God expects us to be when we are perfect. The Holy Spirit is there to guide us toward perfection.
That is probably one reason why Parkhurst said we needed a disposition to follow. A disposition is “temperamental makeup” or “the tendency of something to act in a certain manner under given circumstances” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary).
So, it is more than just keeping the do’s and don’ts of the law. It is building character.
How do we build this character? By doing “… whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy …” (Phil. 4: 8 NIV).
Bag the Law
“… you are not under the law” (Gal. 5: 18 CSB)
Beecher made a good point. What happens if the laws go away? Are we going to start murdering people? Stealing? Trespassing?
After one of the mass shootings, I heard a media report that the shooter broke 42 different laws. And many think stiffer gun laws are going to stop shootings — mass or shootings of any number?
No. If some people aren’t going to follow current laws, why would they follow one more?
Besides, I could begrudgingly follow the laws — until I have a more compelling reason not to follow them. Building character makes it about who we are and what we believe, not do’s and don’ts.
Wouldn’t that be better? There are so many things we cannot govern by laws. We cannot govern evil. We cannot govern who is or isn’t going to love someone. We cannot pass laws that govern our thoughts and feelings.
But if we instill in ourselves the value of human life, we won’t take another’s life. We will love them regardless of our differences.
But let’s take this back to the Mosaic law. We talked about this not long ago when we talked about the covenant God made with Abraham.
Since the law can’t be payment for our sins, we are still spiritually dead under it. We have to admit our sins, believe on Jesus as Redeemer, confess God as Sovereign Lord, and demonstrate that commitment by following our job description.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Making the Connections
The Spirit gives us freedom from the consequences of our sins. Those consequences are spiritual death and separation from God.
It is all hooked together. Salvation brings regeneration and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
We are free from the law. No where under the law was provision for grace and mercy.
Being led by the Spirit means we have access to God. We are no longer separated from Him. The Spirit gives us direct access.
How Do We Apply This?
How do we let the Spirit lead? In order to do that we have to be in tune with Him. That means we have to seek God.
Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17 NLT).
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3 ESV).
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16 ESV).
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11 NLT).
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2).
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11 NLT).
To read Has God Provided Everything We Need?, click the button below.
How can we let the Spirit lead if we are not communicating with God and actively trying to hear His response?
So, when we read God’s Word, we need to ask ourselves the following questions:
- What was the passage about?
- What spoke to me from what I read?
- What was God telling me through that?
- What do I need to look into further?
- What action plan should I have to make needed changes?
We’ve got to walk the walk. That means we need to cut out the sins of the flesh. We will be looking at those in the next devotion.
Father. You have given us Your Spirit to help lead us to live lives pleasing to You. Forgive us of our sins and help us to lay them at Your feet. Too many times, we continue to bite on ourselves because of passed sins. Help us to know that You have “… removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west” (Ps. 103: 12 NLT). May we always seek You so that we can grow in grace and knowledge of You (I Pet. 3: 18). Amen.
Related Links
I have created a worksheet of the questions above. Click on the button below to access it.
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