Sunday 2021.11.21
Today's Passages:
1 Chronicles 10:1 - 12:40 GNB (101 verses)
Romans 6:1 - 8:39 NKJV (87 verses)
About eighteen years ago, in March 2003, I wrote and delivered a sermon entitled, "The Three Spiritual Laws" to the Chinese Methodist Church in Kampar, the town where I worked and stayed. This sermon is based on the teachings about the Law of God, the Law of Sin and the Law of the Spirit written by the Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, chapters 7 and 8, linked below:
This morning I pondered over the Law of the Spirit of Life as explained in Romans 8:1 - 6, and it occurred to me that this Law of the Spirit involves three steps.
- First step: the Spirit dwells in our bodies
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Romans 8:9 - 10
KJV says,"But ye are not in the flesh, but in the
Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.
Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And
if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit
is life because of righteousness."
It is also written in 1 Corinthians 3:16 KJV, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?"
Similarly in 1 Corinthians 6:19 KJV, "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" - Second step: the Spirit directs our lives
-
Romans 8:13 - 14
KJV says,"For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall
die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body,
ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are
the sons of God."
Likewise, Galatians 5:25 KJV tells us, "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." - Third step: the Spirit delivers us from death
- In Romans 8:10 - 11 KJV we read, "And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you."
Brothers and Sisters in the Lord Iesus, let us allow the Holy Spirit to dwell in us, to direct our lives and to deliver us from death to life.
