“Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit with you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them”. – Ezekiel 36:25-27
LIGHT FOR NOW: The believer in Christ who has been indwelt by the spirit has that as an eternal status in Christ.
Paul in Romans 8:14 echoes “For as many as are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God”. In describing our new birth upon which we are sons of God, Paul uses the word “led”. The word “led” is descriptive of our new birth because it is translated from the Greek word “ago” which means “to be born or to be carried”. So, Paul describes the new birth as a leading; a carrying by the spirit. Direction therefore comes with the new birth. The leading of the spirit comes with the new birth. The leading of the spirit has its bedrock in the indwelling of the spirit. In essence, those that are not indwelt by God’s spirit can’t have the reality of the leading of the spirit. It thus suffices to say that the direction for the believer is not external but internal. Direction doesn’t come outside us, it comes from us or within us by the holy spirit in us. We don’t look outside for direction, we look inside for direction. By the indwelling of the spirit, we have the leading of the spirit.
Paul emphasized to the Corinthian church this fact – the fact that they are indwelt by God’s spirit: 1Corinthians 2:12 “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God”. 1Corinthians 3:16 “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you”. 1Corinthians 6:19 “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” This was in spite of the correction he gave to them earlier in the same chapter; 1Corinthians 3:1 “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ”. They still had the spirit of God. It is a never-ending fact. A believer must accept this fact, hold unto the knowledge of it irrespective of what happens. It is what gives us the confidence of God’s leading every day and all the time. Glory!
INSTRUCTION: Mediate on your realities.
CONFESSION: The indwelling of the spirit is my eternal status in Christ and the leading of the spirit is my inheritance in Christ, in Jesus Name. Amen.
QUOTE: The indwelling of the spirit is the believers’ eternal status in Christ.
DAILY BIBLE READING: MORNING: 1CORINTHIANS CHAPTER 2; EVENING: 1CORINTHIANS CHAPTER 3
LIGHT FROM THE WORD 