This week Ps Sean continues the series on Values of Family Church with ‘We are Spiritual’. He references the story of Nicodemus in John 3. Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be born again in order to see the Kingdom of God but Nicodemus does not understand what He (Jesus) means. 

But when Jesus speaks to us, He is not speaking logic and understanding. He is speaking Spirit and life. Often, like Nicodemus, we get our kind of thought process, but it isn't going to work in order for us to have a relationship with God and then understand the things of God. First we must come to the place of spiritual life. This can only be achieved by believing in the name of Jesus, the name who saves. Then we can transform our natural thinking into spiritual thinking and understand Jesus. This is based on believing in faith. 

The new life, the believing in Jesus, being born again, this moment is called salvation as Paul wrote in Ephesians 1:13-14 (NIV) “ And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory”. This seal, the deposit, or down payment means nothing can come against you because you have His presence inside of you – awesome eh!  We will face trials and tribulations but we stand by faith saying ‘God has marked me, is in me, and is the great overcomer’.

We are the redeemed people of god who once walked in darkness yet now have the Spirit of God within us to help us understand the Word as never before. John 14:26 (NIV) says “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you”. So we don’t need to depend on earthly things when we are down - often they make us feel worse! Immediately after these verses in John 14 comes the passage abiding in the vine in John 15. If we remain in Him and he remains in us we shall bear much fruit…..apart from Him we can do nothing. The key here is continually abiding in connection with the Holy Spirit and living life submitted to the Spirit – hard at times when the flesh wants to take over. The fruit mentioned here is described in Galatians 5:22 onwards….. Love, joy, peace…there is no law against these things because they are of the Spirit of God. No force acts against these fruits, they are of the Spirit of God. A Christian walking in the Spirit produces fruit of the Spirit just as an apple tree produces apples – no law governs this.

The rest of Galatians 5 is devoted to living life by the Spirit. If we walk by the Spirit we will not gratify the desires of the flesh. We are not free to do whatever we want, but if we are led by the spirit, we will develop Spiritual fruit and our lives will be recognised as such.  Let us eagerly desire the Holy Spirit in our lives.