This essay is about hope and strength. It's about renewal and peace. I hope it brings encouragement to someone's heart.
Sometimes it can be really hard to follow God and very overwhelming to think about. We all sin. Even following Christ and being born again and saved from sin we still get entangled in it in this world. It can be very discouraging. I doubt there is anyone who does not at times feel as if it’s impossible. But what we need to realize is that although we must take actions to be in the Spirit and strive for holiness, that change comes through the power of God. If we stay in God, He changes us.
We are told to “not lose heart” because “we are being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 2:15). The grammar shows an outward power changing us. In Colossians we are “being renewed… in the image of [the] Creator” (Colossians 3:9-10). Our renewal is “by the Holy Spirit, whom [God] poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior” (Titus 3:5-6).
It is through the Spirit of God that we “put to death the misdeeds of the body” (Romans 8:13) and have hope (Romans 15:13). We who “contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). It is only by “walk[ing] by the Spirit” that we “will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16) because it we are “strengthened… with power through his Spirit in [our] inner being” (Ephesians 3:16).
When God fills us “with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives” it is then that we are able to “live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that [we] may have great endurance and patience” (Colossians 1:9-1).
(Also Philippians 3:3, 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, 1 Peter 1:1-2.)
But we have to remember that in order to be changed, cleansed, renewed and grown by the Spirit, we must act in conjunction with the spirit. After all, “the righteous requirement of the law [are] fully met in us, who… live… according to the Spirit… The mind governed by the flesh… does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. 9 [Those who]... are in the realm of the Spirit” do but only “if... the Spirit of God lives in [them]… if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ” (Romans 8:4, 7-9). After all, it is possible for us to “quench the Spirit” through whom we “reject every kind of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:19, 23).
And that is why scripture says we must “not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of [our] mind.” This grammar shows that we ourselves are taking action. Then we are “able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2). “God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life…. Anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 4:7-8). We are told to “purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God” (2 Corinthians 7:1).
We choose what to fill our minds and lives with. “Don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? ...Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world [is] an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us?” It is only by “submit[ting] [our]selves” to God that we can “resist the devil” who will then “flee from [us]” (James 4:4-7).We must “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:5).
Our world (including most churches) has been filled with secularism that teaches that we need to be independent and choose our own way and that it is restricting and old fashioned to follow the Bible. We need to “remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold:… ‘In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.’ These… people… follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.” But we “by building [our]selves up in [our] most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep [our]selves in God’s love” (Jude 1:17-20).
Ephesians 6:13-17 is full of actions we take as we put on the armor of God.
Seems like a lot but we can take hope in the fact that we “can do all this through him who gives [us] strength” (Philippians 4:13). God will “encourage [our] hearts and strengthen [us] in every good deed and word” (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17, 3:3). He will “strengthen [our] hearts so that [we] will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones” (1 Thessalonians 3:13).
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