Your Mind according to the Spirit ...

Tuesday, Oct 18, 2016. What is filling your mind? What type of thoughts, what type of feelings? What is keeping you busy? What are you thinking when you wake up, when you wait in the subway, when you travel to school or to work, when you have a break? What is filling your thoughts?

Filled by the Spirit …

In the New Testament, the apostles call us to let our mind be filled by the spirit of God, by the holy spirit. He is the spirit of Christ Jesus, the risen one. The apostle Pauls calls worldly things “the flesh” - those which are separated from God and his spirit. And he calls everything else “in the spirit” or “according to the spirit”. Let us listen to the original verses, for example in Romans 8:

5 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. (from Romans 8)

So it is pretty clear that as Christians we are called to live according to the spirit. It is also clear that we are called to do so, so we might fail to do so. Yet, we are told that we will get into deep trouble when we do not live according to the spirit - for various reasons.

Life in the Spirit …

So what does it mean to live in the spirit. When you continue to read Romans 8 for example, you will realize that Paul does not start with ethics or rules. He starts with “being kids of God”. He starts with describing a relationship. He then talks about suffering, about weakness, and about consolation. He talks about the spirit as a helper who helps us to stay in truth, love and patience in all suffering.

Paul talks a lot about freedom. Life in the spirit is life in freedom - the freedom from sin and destruction. That is his main topic in this chapter of the letter to the Romans. Freedom and being a kid of God is strongly linked. Freedom and weakness, freedom and consolation, freedom and love, freedom and truth.

Paul describes a state of life, not targets. Of course, such a state is linked to actions and it is linked to targets as well, since humans tend to think and to plan and to develop perspective. But this state of “life in the spirit” cannot be reached by following particular targets. It is the other way around: first you need to come to faith, and when you develop trust in the Lord, when you are filled with his spirit, the whole state of your life will be changed and that will finally lead to different behaviour as well - how could you continue to do bad things when you are filled with the spirit of freedom, trust, truth and love? It is a great adventure which the bible describes here - an adventure for you and for me! (Roland Potthast) ... more texts