Living Your New LIfe Apart From The Spirit, Persistence is Futile

My Utmost For His Highest

 

He said to them, "This kind [of unclean spirit] can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting." —Mark 9:29

 

““His disciples asked Him privately, ‘Why could we not cast it out?’ ” (Mark 9:28). The answer lies in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. “This kind can come out by nothing but” concentrating on Him, and then doubling and redoubling that concentration on Him. We can remain powerless forever, as the disciples were in this situation, by trying to do God’s work without concentrating on His power, and by following instead the ideas that we draw from our own nature. […] Your duty in service and ministry is to see that there is nothing between Jesus and yourself. […] Paul said, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13) […] Can I face things as they actually are in the light of the reality of Jesus Christ, or do things as they really are destroy my faith in Him, and put me into a panic?”  CHAMBERS

 

When Jesus spoke to Nicodemus in John 3, Jesus got right to the point .. for Nicodemus to find what he was unsuccessfully seeking through knowledge and ritual, he had to be born again .. reborn by the Spirit.  In John 14, 15, and 16, Jesus spoke of the Helper that the Father was sending who would abide in the disciples, and all other Believers.  In Ephesians 1 Paul wrote about each Believer being sealed by God the Father with the Spirit.  In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul reminded the Corinthian church that each Believer is the temple of the Holy Spirit.  We cannot live our new life apart from the Spirit.  Trying to live your new life by trying harder is futile.  Persistence is futile!  God put His Spirit in us for a reason.  The Spirit is the means by which we are spiritually connected to the Father.  The only reason we have the Spirit is because of the Son.  (Zechariah 4:6) “‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts.”  I think that most Christians overlook the role of the Spirit .. apart from the fruit and the gifts.  We don’t see the importance of the Spirit in every second of our new life.  Having trouble with living like you know you should?  Perhaps you are trying to live in the power of knowledge and ritual.  (Galatians 5:25) “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”  Walk your day out with a spiritual awareness of who you are in Christ.  Walking by faith.  Living by faith in the power of the Spirit.  ELGIN