In our last look at the ball diagram, I want to explain God, sin and the spirit. This is longer than usual, but I ask that you please read through it – it may be exactly what you needed to hear today.
Before you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you are cut off from fellowship with God. I know this seems harsh but here is this truth from scripture.
Isaiah 59:2 says, “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.”
Colossians 2:13a says, “You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away.”
So not only are you struggling to get your divine needs met by the world, constantly be inflated and then deflated, you also have an additional problem which is your spirit is dead to God. YOU cannot choose differently without HIS help.
Then God does this amazing thing, explained in in Ephesians 2:4-5 – “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ”
Did you catch who is doing what? God because of His great love for us, makes us alive together with Christ? It is only HE who can bring the dead to life.
And when Holy Spirit living outside of the unbeliever creates in us a desire for something that can truly satisfy, then this amazing thing happens, which Romans 6:4 describes. “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” This is the spiritual baptism that happens to you when you accept Jesus. (The act of water baptism is the outward visible action of what has already happened inward). Additionally, this verse is alluding to Jesus’ sacrificial death providing a means for us to walk in the “newness of life”. This spiritual baptism gives us this new life. An amazing exchange takes place – our dead spirit is replaced with one that is alive and in communion with God through Holy Spirit who takes up residence in us. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says” God made Jesus to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Jesus, we might become the righteousness of God.”
Now, the ball diagram changes to this below. Sin has been cut off, and it no longer has access nor is it master to the spirit. It does still reside in your soul and your body as Paul discusses in Romans 7:22-23, “For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.”
You now have a choice to walk after Holy Spirit who is guiding you with His quiet voice, to remember that the old you is dead and buried with Christ, and when He rose from the dead, you are now given a new spirit, a new life. Sin (the enemy, satan) likes to take us down our old familiar ways, and if we accept a thought that leads in the direction, we are saying “yes” to sin and therefore WE are giving him permission to continue.
How do we fight to continue to walk after the Spirit? 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 explains, “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ”. We remember that Holy Spirit lives in us and what WE cannot do, HE can. So with HIS power in us, we take the thought captive – we tell it that we are no longer under that master or in that prison, but we are children of the Most High God, brothers and sisters to Jesus Christ, and the power of that thought just dies away. It may return but we just keep doing this over and over and over again. Praise God for what He has done for us! It is the ultimate act of love, grace and mercy.
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