No Condemnation

Today we are reading from Romans 8:1-11.

 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 
 Oh!   I love this verse don't you?   To think that if we are in Christ, there is no condemnation heaped upon our heads!  Why?  Because we've been freed from slavery to sin!

 ² For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 
The Law of the Spirit has set us free!  Think on that a spell!   FREEDOM!   No condemnation. That's what the Lord God has wrought for us.  






³ For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴ in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 
It's what GOD did.  Our flesh couldn't... it was too weakened by sin to do anything about the state it was in...but God is above our flesh, above our weakness, so he fulfilled the law so that we could have that freedom to walk in the Spirit. 
 
 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. ⁶ For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷ For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. ⁸ Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
See...see the advantage of living by the Spirit?   It changes your outlook on life.  It changes mine!   I know it gives me the ability to look for the positive in situations where finding the positive can be a challenge, but God hides blessings in places we don't expect, so living by the Spirit keeps us open to that, you know what I mean??

I read verse 6-8 and I think oh.. how I struggle.  I WANT my mind to be fixed on the things of the Spirit and so often I find it so hostile to God. caught up in the things of the world around me.   I DO NOT want to be in a mindset that is hostile to God.  I don't.   So how do I balance this dichotomy within?
 
⁹ You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. ¹⁰ But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. ¹¹ If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
Paul is so gracious... so full of reminders that if I am in Christ, I am living by the Spirit.  I am. BUT if I don't have the Spirit of Christ within me... you know what that means?  It means that I do not belong to God, that I am not in Christ, that I am therefore living by the flesh, a state that is hostile to God.    So, if I have accepted Christ's work on my behalf, believing in his death and resurrection for me a sinner, than his Spirit lives in me.  Therefore I am not living in a way hostile to God.    OH...Oh.. that I would remember that more clearly more often.  It would help me make better decisions eh?

What say you? 

To follow along with the rest of this devotional series in Romans Click Here.  
 

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