Living a Larger Life

Rom 8:1-11  There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.  For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,  so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.  To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.  For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law--indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.  But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.  But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.  If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

 The Christian church in Rome insists that adopting the Jewish religious laws are a pre-condition for following the way of Jesus. Paul disagrees: “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.[1]  The life of a Jesus-follower is larger than the limits set by the observance of the Jewish religious rules: ” you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit” .[2] This life begins not when a person has learned the rules, but when the Divine Spirit touches our lives: “he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you”.[3]

So then why do so many people who follow Jesus today pay more attention to the rules of faith than to the life of faith? Why do we think that keeping religious rules equates to living a spiritual life? Paul’s teaching is clear – surrender our lives to the direction of the Spirit of God, and the Christ-like life will follow. I suspect we are afraid of this radical freedom, and choose instead to find safety behind our religious rules and regulations.

Here is the challenge: Pentecost is on its way! The Divine Spirit is already at work within you. Surrender to the work God, and worry less about keeping the rules.

 

Thought
"dilige et quod vis fac." : Love and then what you will, do.[4]
Augustine of Hippo  In epistulam Ioannis ad Parthos

 

 

Third Sunday of Easter

The Lord is with us
Scripture reading taken from A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants p.154

 

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[1] Romans 8:2

[2] Romans 8:9

[3] Romans 8:11

[4] Translation by Professor Joseph Fletcher