“If the Spirit is the source of our life, we must also allow the Spirit to direct every aspect of our lives.”Galatians 5:25 TPT.“My true life is the Anointed One, and dying means gaining more of Him.”Philippians 1:21 TPT. I had put these two verses away for further meditation a while ago, because they seem to be seamlessly interwoven. They were written by the same man, Paul, at different times, to different churches.

Moving on …that verse in Galatians totally hinges on that first word. IF. That word is a word that is often overlooked, but it actually gives us immediate context. IF the Holy Spirit is our source then HE needs to be in charge … of … everything. Over the years people have baulked at what I’ve just said when I said it — in their opinion God gave us a brain and He expects us to use it. My problem with that line of thinking is this – something is wrong with our brain … it needs to be constantly refreshed! 

“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it…”  Genesis 3:6. Eve made a judgment call. She used her own opinion, her eyes, and her brain, to decide what was good. Now God had already told her it would not be good for them to eat it — BUT EVE—this is a really important point—discarded what God said in favour of what she thought. 

That point is important because you and I do this every day. The Lord speaks to us. He doesn’t shout or have a brass band, or angels flying about the room, so we dismiss what we hear because we are unsure if it is Him or not! The way to be sure of what you hear is to know what the bible says, and then obey it, even when it seems too hard. We cannot digest the word by simply reading it, we must participate in God’s processes, voluntarily.

God clearly said to both Adam and Eve: “… but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Genesis 2:17. And because of their disobedience, Adam and Eve both died on the spot … even though they didn’t actually fall down DEAD! They died in their relationship with Him, and slowly but surely mankind walked away from Almighty God, by allowing distance to give us the freedom to do whatever we wanted.

Disobedience ushers in death. It won’t physically kill us, in fact we may go for a very long time without even realising we are dying! But eventually, because the Holy Spirit is gracious and He continually strives with us – we will realise we have walked further and further away from Him. That’s a dumb move!! HE’S THE SOURCE OF ALL LIFE. The further away we walk, the dead-er we will get, until we don’t care anymore what He thinks. That’s very dead.

The way we fix this dilemma is clearly shown to us in that second verse, Philippians 1:21. We must live this life choosing to die to ourselves, voluntarily, otherwise we will slowly lose sight of our heavenly calling and we will be dragged away by our own lusts and need for comfort. If we choose to die to what we think, and obey Him in the face of our fears, temptations, unbelief, antagonism, anger etc. – that means we are choosing to die to self. Self is the bit that needs to die. SELF ate from that tree!

At the right time, Jesus was born into this world. God came to earth Himself, as a MAN. Jesus Christ accepted the dreadful fate that awaited Him. He knew what came next and, despite the cost, He still made that choice to continue on that road. Now, we follow His example every single day.The Lord Jesus was separated from His Father when He became sin, He was separated so we don’t have to be. Intimacy with God is now our portion.

Jesus chose to die knowing that His Father would raise Him from the dead. Now the fear of death, and death itself no longer had a hold over Him – it could not keep Him in the grave. He knew the pain had a bigger purpose. Jesus died for us, so SIN will no longer have a hold over us, either. We don’t have to fail – we have been given the freedom to choose His Will, His Way. He gave us the power to overcome sin and our enemies..

We can live like Jesus Himself did – by living for the will of our Father. The secret is to make the hard choices, like this: “But I will do it, I will go to that person I cannot get along with and ask for forgiveness and then I will die daily as I apply that decision into my everyday life, no matter what it costs me.” The Holy Spirit will lead us, day by day, to die to ourselves, and live a brand new life. He knows the Way through every pitfall, every temptation, every grief stricken moment. 

Now we can go beyond the veil of ignorance about our own sin and unbelief, into the Holy of Holies, where God is. Jesus paved the way for us. The Holy Spirit has been given to us to lead us, and reveal to us what God wants from each one us. We have a reference book that is alive, this book is used by our Helper, to convict and convince us about where we need to change. The truth should change our lives. Bye. 👋