Life by the Spirit

“And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” (Ro 8:10 AV)

Reading our learned writers, it is clear most are confused as to the meaning of this verse.  They cannot decide if the body spoken of above is the flesh or if it is our literal bodies.  They cannot tell if the life to which Paul refers is a present life of righteousness or our eventual resurrection.  Regardless of how one reads it, there is an overriding principle here applicable to the here and now.  That is, the Spirit is the source of righteousness that we can live in today.  The more I read Romans chapter eight, the more I see the work of the Holy Spirit in empowering us to live righteously.  As the reader works through the chapter, one notices just how free from sin we are.  What we often miss is the place of the Holy Spirit versus the inability of the flesh to overcome the flesh.  This is what I believe Paul is trying to express in verses ten and eleven.  No doubt verse eleven is speaking of the resurrection.  Paul speaks of the Holy Spirit quickening our mortal bodies.  Our mortal bodies are alive until our physical death, so I think what Paul is trying to do is compare the physical resurrection of our dead mortal bodies with the quickening of our new man by the power of the Holy Spirit because the old man is dead.  The old man is dead and unable to do right as we learned by accepting Christ.  He now lives in us and the old man is dead.  It is unable to live in righteousness.  Life comes by the Spirit.  At least this is my feeble attempt at explaining a difficult passage.  The point to be made here is the place of the Holy Spirit in all this.

Like many, I am fighting the battle of the bulge.  My doctor is convinced that I am an obsessive eater and I can tell you, I am not.  You can ask my better half.  For whatever reason, I tend to keep what I gain.  So, I have tried several things.  I am not into gimmicks.  I am not into fad diets.  They only work for a short period and research shows those who use them, once they go off them, regain all the weight lost plus interest.  The better way, in my humble opinion, is simply.  Burn more calories than you take in.  It really is that simple.  Although there is no reason to eat what you despise just to prove you can control yourself, there is something to be said about making better choices in our food selection.  Choosing to eat foods low in calories while still making us feel full is the way to go.  There is one answer I sort of stumbled upon by researching another health issue from which I suffer.  I am hypothryratic.  My thyroid underperforms.  One of the symptoms is dry and itchy skin.  To combat this, I take vitamin B-12 every day.  After two weeks, it all went away.  The wintertime is a bit of a challenge, but a bit of medicated skin cream as well as B-12 seemed to help.  After researching the answer, I came across an article that stated taking B-12 without B-6 was less effective.  If I wanted to full effects of B-12, I also had to take B-6 with it.  The article also stated that vitamin B-6 also helped to control appetite.  I noticed right away this assertion was true.  It didn’t take but a few days of B-6 to notice a decreased sense of hunger.  I didn’t have it within me to say no to food as much as I should if I wanted to lose weight.  But pop vitamin B-6 and it became much easier.

Not that the Holy Spirit is a pill we swallow, but the analogy is a bit the same.  The Holy Spirit comes into our hearts and souls without a direct invitation on our part.  He is part and parcel of accepting Christ.  It is a package deal.  We accept Jesus as our Savior and the Holy Spirit resides.  It is the ministry of the Holy Spirit that gives us life.  It is He who is the power behind living in Christ.  We are sealed until the day of redemption by the presence of the Holy Spirit.  While He resides, He empowers.  All we need to do is yield to the power that is there.  When I pop a vitamin B-6, there is no conscious yielding.  It does its work.  When it comes to the Holy Spirit, there must be a conscious choice to yield to the influence, conviction, leading, and instruction of the Holy Spirit.  If we can learn to yield, we will then live.