But if Christ is in you… the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he… will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
—Romans 8:9-11
When you hear the phrase “Holy Spirit,” what comes to mind? For some people, especially those outside of Christ, it sounds strange, even spooky. And some believers, reacting to the excesses and extremes they’ve seen, hold the whole subject at arm’s length. But the Holy Spirit is no ghost, and He is no mere influence.
Go back to Genesis 1. When God created the heavens and the earth, the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. The Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. He is fully God, a Person, not an impersonal force. Across the translations He’s called the Helper, the Comforter, the Advocate. Every one of those names is a gift.
Did you know that Jesus Himself lived a Spirit-filled life? Though He is God, at His baptism the Spirit rested upon Him. He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness and overcame the devil in the Spirit’s power. He performed His miracles by the Spirit. The very title “Christ” means anointed, anointed by the Spirit as Messiah.
Now here is the breathtaking truth of this passage: that same Spirit who filled Jesus dwells in you if you belong to Christ. “The Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you.” Stop and consider what that means. The power that rolled the stone away and called Jesus out of the grave, that power lives inside the believer.
And this changes the whole struggle we’ve been reading about in Romans 7. You don’t fight the flesh by your own grit. You fight it by the indwelling Spirit. In fact, it’s impossible to become a Christian at all without His work, it was the Spirit who convicted you of sin, convinced you Jesus is Lord, and drew you to respond. You didn’t come to faith merely because you decided one day to; you came because the Spirit was moving in your life.
That’s why the Christian life apart from the Spirit of God isn’t just difficult, it’s impossible. The old nature, the memories, the inclinations, the temptations, these may linger and discourage you, just as they did Paul. But you are no longer left to face them alone. The resurrection power of God resides within you.
So how do we live? We “walk in the Spirit,” in obedience to and dependence upon the One who lives in us. And the evidence that you’re filled with the Spirit is not a feeling, an emotional high, or some exotic experience. The signal is fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control growing in your life.
Don’t chase the feeling of the Spirit. Seek the filling of the Spirit. The very power that raised Jesus lives in you, stop trying in your own strength, and start walking in His.
THE SAME SPIRIT WHO RAISED JESUS FROM THE DEAD DWELLS IN YOU, WALK IN HIS POWER, NOT YOUR OWN.
