Eternal Approach

The Lord IS the Spirit of Christ – the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is God. He is a Person. He is active and moving within every Christian.

He is the One who lives within us TO DO the things that He has commanded us to do. And to NOT DO the things that we should not do.

This is why the Bible says that we must be “obeying the truth through the Spirit.” (I Peter 1:22)

But what does this mean? Really?

We see that phrase, “through the Spirit“, and then basically walk right on by it. Like we tend to do with a great deal of the word of God.

We tend to see these phrases as a kind of poetic excess that the Lord has put into His word. Or we think that the King James translators suffered from an abundance of flowery language and superfluous rhetoric.

Or that they wrote with a kind of middle-English “God talk”. As some like to say to put down the KJV.

And therefore, the words are not treated seriously.

We ignore incredible spiritual truths that have been placed right in front of us.

A Boring Christian Life

Many Evangelicals have a premeditated, cavalier, know-it-all attitude when it comes to the Christian life and the details of the word of God.

They tend to blow off most of the really critical stuff in the word in order to subject us to a watered down, moderation-in-all-things, nothing-to-the-extreme, nothing-too-over-the-top Christian life.

Which creates a rather boring Christian life.

Yet, the churches still seem generally pleased with this state of affairs.

They are content with a growing focus on good works. On a generally acceptable style of faith that blends in pretty easily with the culture, which is acceptable to the intellectual elites, and which avoids any “scarecrow” appearances of extremism.

All to avoid any “wild” activity that guys like Ezekiel the prophet or John the Baptist engaged in.

This is done by pushing a faddish, Sermon-on-the-Mount-style of the gospel as opposed to that which is based on faith and truth.

A faith which demands a deep, biblical knowledge of the Lord and His word.

A Natural Approach to a Super-Natural Life

Many are trying to change the gospel message into one that is less about what we believe and more about the works which we do.

They attempt to justify this position by saying that they are “proving their faith by their works“.

Sadly, this takes the book of James out of context when he said that faith without works is dead. (James, Chapter 2).

Which is a favorite chapter of the scriptures twisted by the cults and the major “Christian” denominations who attempt to justify their faith-PLUS-works salvation teachings.

This form of Christianity does produce an outward form works. But these works are not supernatural. They are simply natural. They are works of the flesh rather than works of the Spirit.

Because not all “flesh” is that which is sensual or sexual in an obviously “worldly” way. Much of what the scriptures speak of regarding flesh has simply to do with whatever we do in our own strength. Even in our Christian, religious, devotional strength.

Only By Faith 

The true believer, by contrast, must absolutely live by faith.

There is no other way to live in the Spirit.

And that way is entirely dependent on the faith that comes as we stand totally on the words of the scriptures. On every word of the scriptures.

We must be totally dependent on the faith that ONLY comes from the words of God.

Despite the fact that churches today seem quite able to function with little dependence on the words of God.

They depend on God’s word just enough so that it doesn’t interfere with the programs for the youth. Or the outreaches in social engagement to the community. Or the church planting ministries to increase the reach and influence of the parent church. Or the many “partnerships” they engage in to reach the world.

Because Christians today can function pretty well in producing an acceptable level of outward good works without absolute dependence on a regular, deep, solid, and profound level of Bible teaching and preaching.

And therefore, the works produced out of faith are few. While the works of the Christian flesh are plentiful.

“But without faith it is impossible to please Him.” (Hebrews 11:6)

Image by Jukka Niittymaa from Pixabay