Living as Child of The Spirit

In a world that is aggressive with its marketing of pleasure of self, indulging in sin and wickedness, we have to know what God has done to equip us to be victors over this worlds enticements, and to be a burning, blazing light as times get darker.

It starts when we turn away from sin and our own self-willed ways of living (repentance), and go through the process of being Reborn into God’s Family (baptism in Jesus’ Name and being filled with God’s Supernatural Presence).

John 3:1–7 HCSB

1 There was a man from the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Him at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher, for no one could perform these signs You do unless God were with him.” 3 Jesus replied, “I assure you: Unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 “But how can anyone be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked Him. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “I assure you: Unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be amazed that I told you that you must be born again.

When we have gone through this initial process, Jesus takes us through the process of transformation and maturation (helping up to grow and mature in our spirit).

Jeremiah 31:31–33 HCSB

31 “Look, the days are coming”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 This one will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant they broke even though I had married them” —the Lord’s declaration. 33 “Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days”—the Lord’s declaration. “I will put My teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people.

Under the Old Covenant, The Israelites could only grow so much, but that’s because they were limited by how much their sinful human nature could grow and mature.

Under The New Covenant however, God Provides us with the means to more like Him, beginning to learn how to live by the influence and empowering of His Spirit over our sinful human nature, and living in two dimensions at once, the natural, and the supernatural.

Ezekiel 36:25–27 HCSB

25 I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will place My Spirit within you and cause you to follow My statutes and carefully observe My ordinances.

God’s Spirit within us helps us to overpower the desire and influence of our sinful human nature, but how do we live by that power?

While encouraging his disciple in The Lord, The Apostle Paul says this:

2 Timothy 1:6–7 HCSB

6 Therefore, I remind you to keep ablaze the gift of God that is in you through the laying on of my hands. 7 For God has not given us a spirit of fearfulness, but one of power, love, and sound judgment.

Paul tells Timothy keep God’s Gift ABLAZE!

He the phrase is talking about keep the fire burning, stoking and adding what is needed, such as more wood, to keep it bright.

But how do we “stoke The Fire?”

Staying close to The Lord in prayer is primary. We must make spending time with Jesus a daily priority.

Jesus Himself set the example for us by getting up early to pray or staying up late in order to spend time with The Father, The Spirit, through prayer.

Mark 1:35 HCSB

35 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, He got up, went out, and made His way to a deserted place. And He was praying there.

Spending time with Jesus through prayer is our practical expression of openness and vulnerability to Him, or at least it should be.

In this way we begin to interact with the supernatural.

Taking it a step further, we need to implement personal expressive praise and worship into our devotional/prayer time.

During this time, we are literally “feeling after” God’s Presence to connect with us, to surround us, to prompt us.

It’s like not being able to see in a dark room with your hands stretched out, trying to find something to stabilize yourself with.

Acts 17:27–28 HCSB

27 He did this so they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. 28 For in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’

Hebrews 13:15 HCSB

15 Therefore, through Him let us continually offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of our lips that confess His name.

The more often we put this into practice, the more proficient we will be in connecting experientially with God more on a day to day basis.

It is God’s Spirit that refreshes our spirit and soul like water when we’re thirsty. It is God’s Word that feeds our soul like bread when we are hungry.

John 7:37–39 HCSB

37 On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, he should come to Me and drink! 38 The one who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.” 39 He said this about the Spirit. Those who believed in Jesus were going to receive the Spirit, for the Spirit had not yet been received because Jesus had not yet been glorified.

Matthew 4:3–4 HCSB

3 Then the tempter approached Him and said, “If You are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” 4 But He answered, “It is written: Man must not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

As we learn to develop a climate or environment of praise and worship to God, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable to Him, letting our guards down and allowing Him to work on our spirit, which always stokes our emotions, we will become more and more sensitive to the supernatural, to His Presence.

This is how we begin to learn how to pray in the spirit (another lesson).