Living with the Spirit – Part 2
"The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us." (NIV) 1 Corinthians 2:10b-12
Did you miss:Living with the Spirit – Part 1?
As Christians, we are privileged to have God’s Spirit dwelling within us, but what implications does this have for us? We are told in 1 Thessalonians 5:19 not to “quench the Spirit”. The Greek word for quench carries the idea of putting out a flame which makes sense because we know that the Spirit of God is likened to a flame in 2 Timothy 1:6-7 where Paul tells Timothy: “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline”
So, we know that the Spirit of God is within us and by His Spirit we are able to know the deep things of God. We also know that with this amazing gift comes responsibility. We have the responsibility to not quench the Spirit but, on the contrary, we must fan it into flame. The obvious question for the Christian is “how do we do this?”. In Galatians 5:16-17 we learn the answer to this “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh.” One sure way to put out the fire of the Spirit within ourselves is by living according to the flesh because it is in opposition to the Spirit. Instead of living for our fleshly desires we need to live in accordance with what God’s Spirit desires. The list of what God desires is beautifully depicted in Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”
Brothers and Sisters, one of the most effective ways for us to know the deep things of God and grow our relationship with Him is to fan into flame his Spirit within us. In order to do this, we must commit ourselves to do the will of the Spirit by putting off our fleshly desires and putting on the fruits of the Spirit from Galatians 5. If we apply ourselves to these good works, we can be sure that the blessings will follow (1 John 5:18, Psalm 1:1-3) for “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” So “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:24,25)