The Spirit of God brings life.

Song (Click to listen): Victory in Jesus, my savior forever. He sought me and bought me with his redeeming blood. He loved me before I knew him and all my love is due him. He plunged me into victory, beneath the cleansing blood.

 “I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never go hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty [John 6:35].” “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them [John 7:37-38].”

Therefore, there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. (Who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit) [KJV Romans 8:1]. The interpreters of the King James Version of the Bible define “flesh” in contexts like this as a Greek word referring to the sinful state of human beings. Sin and flesh are often presented as a power in opposition to the Spirit of God, but also the characteristic of all humanity. That humanity without Jesus is sinful and condemned. There is no lifestyle a human can live that makes them acceptable to God.

There is a spiritual law that requires death for sin. This is why in biblical times priests killed animals on behalf of the people of Israel who confessed sin. Why? Because God requires blameless people, holy people, righteous people. The blood of the animals met the requirement for God’s law that something blameless must die for sin [Romans 7:14-25].

We are no longer under death’s law. Jesus has made us free because he was the blameless sacrifice that was killed and died and met the spiritual requirement of the law of God for death for sin. The priests in synagogues, their teachings, sacrifices and prayers were insufficient to do the will of God. Jesus is the righteousness of God, meaning he was blameless, his blamelessness is what we inherit when we believe that his sacrifice was for us [Romans 7:1-6].

So the life that the Spirit of God in Jesus gives is freedom from condemnation, for those who walk after the Spirit of God. “Those who live in accordance with the Spirit (of God) have their minds set on what the Spirit (of God) desires [Romans 8:5].” What does God desire?

“This is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me but raise them up at the last day. For my father’s will is that everyone who looks to the son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day [John 6:39-40].”

Belief in Jesus is the will of God and is the only thing that brings life. Religious traditions, food, good clean eating, even manna from heaven in times of need is insufficient at giving the kind of life that Jesus provides [John 6:48-49].

Jesus, as the will of God, is the sacrifice that was made to God on behalf of everyone, to bring life to everyone and condemn sin. If you believe that that sacrifice was sufficient for salvation of the world you receive and eat (consume) in yourself the power of that sacrifice to give you access to God’s will: to redeem your life from things that bring death and to give you life through Jesus [John 6:52-58].

When we stop carrying the weight of our own sin and guilt and accept the offering of life that Jesus presents as his flesh and his blood we too are blameless, our sins are no more. The blood of Jesus does not stop a person from being sinful, the blood of Jesus covers our guilt for sin and sets us free from relying on powers in opposition to God to do what only God can do.This is why Paul says not to live according to what the flesh desires, but after the Spirit of God and what the Spirit of God desires.

What does the Spirit of God desire? Love. The sin that separates people from God is, not believing in Jesus. Deuteronomy 6:5 says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Deuteronomy 30:15-16 says “See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you.” What does God command? Jesus says in John 13:34-35, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

God wants more than people who have get out of Hell free cards type faith. God wants people who will live their life loving him, looking to him only for guidance, prosperity, healing and salvation.

God rewards people who have a heart after his own heart and who diligently seek him. Jesus and his salvation from sin, is the heart of God and the gift of freedom from the world that condemns, binds and gives guilt. The favor of God is with those who have the Spirit of God active in their life.

The law of the Spirit of God says in Isaiah 43:25, “I even I am he that blots out thy transgressions for mine own sake and will not remember thy sins.” In Psalms 103:12 “as far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.”

The law of the Spirit of God cannot accept sin. The law of the Spirit requires righteousness. “The righteousness of the law of the spirit must be fulfilled [Romans 8:4].” How is it fulfilled? Through the blood sacrifice for sin, by Jesus. Jesus paid the price of all sin [Romans 8:3]. What the law (of Moses) could not do, (both the law that is in opposition to the spirit and the requirement of the spirit for righteousness) God did, through sending his own son, Jesus as a sin offering and condemned sin in the flesh. So that there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus [Romans 8:1], because the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free from sin, its laws and the death sin requires, spiritual, social, cultural and physical death [Romans 8:2].  

Some people believe that God is not for them. God, the maker of all things that exist or that can be made from things that exist. The God that made the human mind, body and heart all humanity and all creation. If God is not for us, who is? Who is for you? Friends? Family? Your own mind? Luck? Fate? Destiny? No, God is for everyone, and Jesus is his champion. And if God is for you, who can be against you? [Romans 8:31].

“He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against whom God has chosen (Jesus)? (God is the judge) and it is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died, more than that, who was raised to life, is at the right hand of God, and is also praying for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble? Hardship? Persecution? Famine? Poverty? Danger? War? No in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am convinced that neither death or life, angels or demons, neither the present or the future, will be able to separate us from the Love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. [Romans 8:32-35,37-38]”

God’s justice does not depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. Therefore, God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy [Romans 9:16,18].

If Christianity is indeed a spiritual religion then the spiritual sacrifice of Jesus’ life and death on the cross and resurrection from the grave was what was needed to satisfy the law of the Spirit of Life. Jesus says in Matthew 5:17 “do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets, I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” In John 3:13-17 Jesus says no man has ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the son of man which is in heaven.” Jesus is speaking of himself as the manna, provision, the bread that brings life, the word that is from God. “and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the son of man be lifted up [John3:14].” Jesus is speaking of himself as the provision for the world and the righteousness required by the law of the Spirit for the world. “that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life [John 3:16].” Life, on earth, through the word of God and eternal life. And what does God’s word say?  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through him might be saved. He that believes in him is not condemned [John 3:16-18]”

“What shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but the people of Israel who pursued the law as the way of righteousness have not attained their goal. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. As it is written: ‘see, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame [Romans 9:30-33]’.”

“One of you will say to me ‘then why does God blame us? For who is able to resist his will?’ But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, why did you make me like this? What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath prepared for destruction, what if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy whom he prepared in advance for glory [Romans 9:19-23].”

Even us, whom he also called not only from the Jews but from the Gentiles. As he says in Hosea: ‘I will call them my people who are not my people, and I will call her my loved one who is not my loved one.’ And In the very place where it was said to them ‘you are not my people, there they will be called children of the living God’ [Romans 9:24-26]”.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank you for your son Jesus, the sacrifice you gave for my sins. Thank you for doing what I cannot do and what laws cannot do to cover my unworthiness with your grace, through the blood of Jesus that gives me access to life. Help me not to walk after the flesh, following powers and authorities that are in opposition to your Spirit. Help me to love you and to follow Jesus and the Spirit of God that brings life. Bring this life and this light into my life today and every day.

Song (Click to listen): Cast your burdens unto Jesus for he cares for you.