FRUIT FULL - Living In The Spirit

How’s life going? I mean your Christian life, not your everyday life. Oh wait, isn’t our Christian life supposed to also be our every day life?

It may surprise you to hear this, but great Christians don’t come to Church. That’s because great Christians ARE the Church. Meaning their Christianity doesn’t look any different on Sunday morning than it does on Friday afternoon.

If you have noticed in your every day life a true struggle with deceit, pride, jealousy, anger, lust, envy, and things like these, it could be that you are not allowing the Holy Spirit to guide your every day life.

Yes, you come to Church on Sunday morning. While there, you participate in honest, heart felt worship. The songs uplift you, the prayers move you, the sermon makes you contemplate and want to change. When you leave you are serious about doing better this week than you did last week. Then even before Sunday is over you can’t remember what the sermon was about. The songs on your playlist drown out the songs of worship. The communion you took doesn’t seem to make you feel like you are in community with other Christians or sometimes even Christ.

Might I suggest it could be that you are committing your life to Christ in word but not in deed. If this describes you, read on because there is a better way.

The Apostle Paul, when writing to the Christians in Galatia, warns them to be sure to “walk by the Spirit,” because this will keep them from “gratifying the desires of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16)

He doesn’t say this as a suggestion. In fact he goes on in the very next verse to warn them further by telling them that the “desires of the flesh are against the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:17)

Think about that just a second. God gives the obedient believer His Holy Spirit to live in them and to guide them, not on Sunday, but 24/7/365. However, if the things like anger, deceit, jealousy, etc. that we mentioned earlier are present in life, you are pushing away God’s Spirit.

So, how do we change that dynamic? Confession, repentance, prayer, all of the above? While these things are a big part of the equation you can’t do them as a formula or ritual and expect to “walk by the Spirit.”

First, we must understand what it even means to “walk by the Spirit.” Paul in that same letter to Galatia goes on to explain what that looks like in one’s life. He says your life will have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

There is still a problem though. All of these words have worldly meanings and spiritual meanings. What the Christian must do is learn how to apply the spiritual meanings to their earthly life.

To help with this we have begun here at Cumberland a series of lessons to help us learn how each word applies spiritually. While men and women are of equal value, they have different roles. Realizing this we have split these classes into a ladies’ class and a men’s class. This will help us to hopefully be more honest and open in the questions, doubts, and understandings that we may have.

These classes are happening on Wednesday evenings immediately following our 7:00 p.m. devotional time. It’s a great opportunity in the middle of the week to sing, pray, and learn together so that our every day life and Christian life merge together and are led by the Holy

Spirit of God.