The Joyful Heart by Jim Hughes: Walk In The Spirit

Galatians 5:16 (in this study the word “soul” is substituted for the word “flesh”)

(KJV)

16 Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the soul.

17 For the soul lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the soul: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.

Galatians 5:16

(KJV)

I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

John 4:24

(KJV)

God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Romans 8:5-7

(AMP)

⁵For those who are according to the soul and are controlled by its unholy desires set their minds on and pursue those things which gratify the soul, but those who are according to the Spirit and are controlled by the desires of the Spirit set their minds on and seek those things which gratify the [Holy] Spirit.

⁶Now (in this life on earth before the hereafter) the mind of the soul [which is sense and reason without the Holy Spirit] is death [death that comprises all the miseries arising from sin, both here and hereafter]. But the mind of the [Holy] Spirit is life and [soul] peace [both now and forever].

⁷[That is] because the mind of the soul [with its carnal thoughts and purposes] is hostile to God, for it does not submit itself to God's Law; indeed it cannot.

Do you want soul peace? If you’re like me you sure do. We must remember that we are comprised of three parts to our existence. We are a spirit, we have a soul and we live in a body. God is a spirit and we are a spirit. We have been made in His image, His likeness. We are the closest thing that God could make if He were to make a god; He couldn’t come any closer! We have the ability to create just as He does. No other being has that ability. We have cognitive abilities (the ability to reason and solve problems) and we have emotions that no other beings have.

With that being said, we cannot trust our soul. The soul is our mind, will and emotions. The soul left by itself will always be hostile towards the Spirit and always tries to take control of our being. That is why we need to be led by the Spirit of God.

Romans 8:5-7

(MSG)

^5-8 Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life.

Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.

Romans 8:9-14

(AMP)

9 But you are not living the life of the soul, you are living the life of the Spirit, if the [Holy] Spirit of God [really] dwells within you [directs and controls you]. But if anyone does not possess the [Holy] Spirit of Christ, he is none of His [he does not belong to Christ, is not truly a child of God].

10 But if Christ lives in you, [then although] your [natural] body is dead by reason of sin and guilt, the spirit is alive because of [the] righteousness [that He imputes to you].

11 And if the Spirit of Him Who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, [then] He Who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also restore to life your mortal (short-lived, perishable) bodies through His Spirit Who dwells in you.

12 So then, brethren, we are debtors, but not to the soul [we are not obligated to our carnal nature], to live [a life ruled by the standards set up by the dictates] of the soul.

13 For if you live according to [the dictates of] the soul, you will surely die. But if through the power of the [Holy] Spirit you are [habitually] putting to death (making extinct, deadening) the [evil] deeds prompted by the body, you shall [really and genuinely] live forever.

14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

Romans 8:1-12

(CPV)

1 There is, then, no charge outstanding against those who are in (wedlock to) Jesus Christ. For the Spirit’s law of new life in Christ Jesus released you from the claims of the law of sin and destruction. For when it became clear that legalism was a failure, due to its weakness in dealing with humanity, God sent his own Son, in an exact replica of a man of sin and for sin, and dealt effectively with human sin.

He did this in order that the just aims of the commandments might be realized in us who live not on the level of man but on the level of the Spirit. For they who are man-centered think along human lines, and they who are Spirit-centered think in terms of the Spirit. For man-centered reasoning deadends in destruction, but Spirit-centered reasoning leads to life and space.

Man-centered reasoning is hostile to God, because it does not subordinate itself to God’s plan nor indeed can it do so. People who are man-centered just can’t get along with God. But you all, you are not man-centered but Spirit-centered - provided, of course, that God’s Spirit permeates you. If one doesn’t have Christ’s spirit, he isn’t Christ’s man. But if Christ is in you, the self, because of its sin, is stone dead; but the Spirit, because it is good, is throbbing with life.

And if the Spirit of the God who made Jesus to live again permeates you, then this same God will also give life to your hell-bent egos by means of his Spirit that permeates you.

12 It's a fact, then, brothers, that we are under no obligation whatsoever to live a man-centered life. If you do live that way, you re gonna blow yourselves to smithereens. Yet if by the Spirit you utterly smash your selfishness, you will live. For God’s sons are they who are led by God’s Spirit.

So let’s once again be led by the Spirit, let us be quickened in our hell-bent souls to live a life in spirit (in “spired”) and we will not fulfill the lusts of the soul!

References:

**King James Version (KJV)—Public Domain/ 1604, King James I of

England

The Joyful Heart by Jim Hughes

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Walk In The Spirit

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