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Kevin Bennie

Jan 3, 2024 4:56 PM

The bigger picture - part 2 Keeping in Step

👇💥 FULL DEVO BELOW💥👇 "25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit." Galatians 5:25 (NIV) As always when we are reading scripture and we are asking, "what does this mean?" We have to first step back and look at the surrounding passages and ask how these connect and relate to the passage in question. What bearing do these verses have on each other? Greater Context: "16 So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. 17 The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. 18 But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses. 19 When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, 21 envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. 22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. 25 Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. 26 Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another." (NLT) Two things become very clear through looking at the section: 1. The Sinful Nature is nothing like the Spirit and the Spirit is nothing like the Sinful nature! It's one of the other, they do not look like one another. They are "constantly fighting" according to Paul. 2. We can determine what we are following by the fruit, or what is produced, by our life. If something looks like the Sinful nature on the outside of our life (v.19-21) then we are following the sinful nature internally. Something is wrong. However, if the fruit of our life looks like the Spirit (v. 22-23) A couple things I want to point out here, things that we often overlook: 1. In the list of Sinful Nature results there are things that often get overlooked: hostility, quarreling, outbursts of anger, dissension, division....can anyone say ELECTION YEAR! If your online presence looks like this, it ain't good! 2. There is no law against the things of the Spirit. You want freedom?! check these things out! No law! REFLECT 1. Where do you see your great successes in being led by the Spirit? 2. Where are your greatest pitfalls in letting the sinful nature control you? 3. Where do you see these at work in your online/social media engagement ? PRAY 1. Ask God to reveal your heart and life to you. Ask him to open your eyes to the truth of who you are, in all honesty and grace and humility. 2. Invite God to give you direction: is there a fruit of the Spirit that God may want you to grow in, to practice?

Christian Living

Encouragement

Sin

Repentance

Hey folks, we are in this series of keeping in step with the Spirit and whenever we're asking what does this mean we should always look at the greater context that we find the scripture in. So Galatians 525 is in a greater section 16 through 26 and the whole chapter we're gonna look at it it's got some incredible wisdom and insight into the spiritual life but we're just gonna look at this as it relates to our theme. So this section though really does highlight a couple things that I want to point out. First it highlights that there is a very clear distinction between the sinful nature and a life led by the Spirit. Okay we have the sinful nature and we can choose to be led by the Spirit. It is one or the other. It can't be both and they don't look the same. When you read this section, it's all posted below, you cannot choose to do both. Paul makes that really clear. These natures, these options are at odds with each other and he says they're constantly fighting. Those are the words that he uses. So keep that in mind that when we're looking at a life, the life that we want, the life that we have right now, the life that we have lived or someone else's life, we can say we can look at the fruit of it. This is my other point that you can look at the fruit and say well is this the sinful nature or is this a life led by the Spirit? So I want you to consider those two things today. I want you to pray about that. Where do you see some of your greatest successes in being led by the Spirit and maybe where are some of your biggest pitfalls where you choose the sinful nature? Consider this in prayer. I want to apply it directly to two parts of our life and I want you to think about this. First, the list that Paul gives us in verses 21, sorry it's 18 through 19 or 20 of the sinful nature. He says this cannot exist in the life of the Spirit. There's a lot of things that we usually like to poke at and highlight, right? It's usually issues of lust and sexual pleasure and immorality, that kind of thing. But what about these ones? Hostility, quarreling, outbursts of anger, dissension, division. You know what that sounds like to me? Sounds like an election year on social media, okay? I want you to just really consider that as we're stepping into this year like what does your social media, what does your online engagement look like? Does it look like these things? That is not the life of led by the Holy Spirit. It can't be. Okay, here's the other thing. At the end of this life that we look at, the fruits of the Spirit, he says against such things there is no law. He says there's no law when it looks like the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, all very wonderful things, sometimes very difficult things to have and to demonstrate in the face of difficulty or hostility when it's against us. But where do you sit in these things? You have complete freedom in these areas as long as they don't overlap and to try to look in like both. Nope, they're different. They're separate. Where does it sit for you friends? I pray God's blessing on you as you consider and sit with these ideas.

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