The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"Live and Walk. Be and Do."
This week's memory verse speaks to the matter of spiritual sequence.
"If we live in the Spirit, let us walk in the Spirit" (Galatians 5:25).
Born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ do, in fact, live in the Spirit.
"That which is born of the Spirit is spirit… Ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you" (John 3:6; Romans 8:9).
The entrance of the Holy Spirit at the time of our new birth constituted us as spiritual in our innermost being and nature. We are spirits united to the Holy Spirit therein. Thus, we "live in the Spirit." Whether we walk accordingly, however, is another matter. In our present existence, being does not always lead to doing. Living temples of Christ can look quite ramshackle if we fail to affirm and respond to the truth of who our Lord is in us, and who we are in Him. A "law of sin" remains in our earthly faculties and members that, like the physical law of gravity, will always direct us downward if allowed to have reign upon our thoughts, words, and actions (Romans 7:23; 25). Yes, we can "live in the Spirit," which we do by God's freely given grace in Christ. But we can walk after the flesh.
Faithfulness to God not only requires being in the Spirit. We must also know and affirm the truth thereof, yielding our spiritual selves and mortal bodies to the Lord (the sixth chapter of Romans speaks powerfully to this truth). We present our spiritual selves to God "as alive from the dead," that is, as united to the Spirit of the risen Christ (Romans 6:11). We present our mortal bodies to our Heavenly Father as "dead because of sin," that is, our earthly faculties and members require His enlivening if we are to walk in faith and obedience (Romans 8:10-11). God promises this infusion of the life of Christ as we walk in His truth, trusting in His mighty work already accomplished in our spirits, and trusting also in His promised work of imparting the power of Christ to our faculties and members. "He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken (enliven) your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you" (Romans 8:11).
The sequence of being and doing must be established in both our doctrinal understanding and our outworking of God's grace in Christ. We live and walk, never the reverse. We are and we do. Never the reverse. God irrevocably changed the spiritual essence of who and what we are when we believed. Much work remains to be done in how we think, speak, act, and relate. We can live and not walk. We can be and not do. However, nothing changes the miracle of grace that occurred within us when the Spirit of God entered our innermost being. This we must believe because it is true, and because our Father calls us to walk in the Spirit by walking in His truth.
"Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord… Yield yourselves unto God, as those which are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God."
(Romans 6:11; 13)
"If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away, behold, all thing are become new."
(II Corinthians 5:17)
Weekly Memory Verse
If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
(Galatians 5:25)
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