asked if he could talk to me about spiritual problems. We discovered that the only time we both could make it was while he was up flying the next afternoon. So, I went with him, although I get all the flying I need in meetings from here to there. As we were cruising along, he sud denly turned and asked, “Listen, how can the law of sin and death be over come? How can I be set free and live in the liberty of God’s Son?” I illus trated it for him: “A little while ago we were bound to the ground. It’s because of the fact that we’re in the airplane now which sets us free. The principle or law of gravity held us on the earth. But that law has been overcome now because of aerodynam ics. It doesn’t make the law of grav ity non-existent. It simply over comes it when we are in the air plane. Even so, in Christ Jesus there is a principle that operates, the law of the Spirit of life, that sets us free from the law of sin and death. If you are in Christ, the Spirit of God is in you to overcome all that the power of sin is within you.” He readily saw the point and claimed God’s victory for his life. How about you? Have you been set free from this lesser power that seeks to dominate and
bind? May God help us to enjoy all the power and freedom God intends that we should have through the in dwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. RELEASED LIFE PART III A s WE CONSIDER the power of God which can be operative in our lives, there are three key words to remember: mind, walk, and mortify, found in Romans 8. These three en able the law of the Spirit of life to be the counteracting force of the law of sin and death in the believer. While the Lord doesn’t want us to have an obsession, He does want our minds to be captivated and abso lutely anchored upon the Spirit of God in us. We can either mind the flesh or we can mind the Spirit. One commentator has suggested that there are about twenty-three differ ent meanings of the word flesh in the Bible. It basically means all that you are apart from all that the Spirit of God is within you. As long as our conversation and thinking is gov erned by “I, me, my, and mine,” we are minding the things of the flesh. We have really become obsessed with ourselves. In this way, spiritually speaking, we never get very far. Are you so enthralled with who He is and so delighted in all that He is within you that you are exhilarated by the possibilities of the Holy Spirit’s be ing released through you? Now it is one thing to have our minds fixed upon something and it is another for us to act upon what we know in our minds. The Bible re quires that we not only mind the things of the Spirit, but also that we walk after the Spirit. This means to move one step at a time into a sit uation, reckoning with who the Spirit of God is within us. The Christian life is not a step, but rather a continuous walk. We need to remind ourselves that it is possible in every single step of the way to
Dean of Men, Paul Poelstra (right), chats with Biola freshman student Larry Neiswender of Spokane, Wash. Mr. Polstra is also a graduate of Biola Colege.
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker