Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after His death. When you consider the spiritual power it took to raise Jesus from the dead, you will understand the power that is needed for us to stop living for our flesh and begin living to please the Lord. Resurrection power!
The good news for us believers is that resurrection power is available to every believer, and the Spirit of God uses this power in our lives to raise us up and out of sin. When the Spirit uses resurrection power in our lives, He raises us above living for base human needs; He raises us above a “food-focused mindset” and above gratifying our flesh. He raises us up with Christ and focuses our spiritual eyesight on the glories and blessings of the cross, the joy of walking with Jesus in our lives.
Oh, the exquisite joy of all this, don’t you think? The Spirit of God is at work in us to extract us from a life of fleshly thinking and living, and He elevates us to a Christ-centered, cross-focused, heavenly minded, joy-filled, abundant, and eternal life.
Because all believers have the Spirit of God living in us, we are told:
“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:1-3 NIV).
Oh, friend, believers are not to be base people, people who dwell on food, clothes, money, and other basic things of this life. Don’t allow yourself to be so earthly minded that you’re no heavenly good. Instead, since you have been raised with Christ to a new life, set your heart on Jesus, who died for your forgiveness, on Jesus who rose for your justification (Romans 4:25). Look at Him! See and experience His suffering for you! Feel His love for you! Know deeply His compassion toward you! Fixate on Him! Become obsessed with Him! All this is the work of the Spirit of God in your heart and life.
Now, here is our last section of Romans 8:
“Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:12-13 NIV).
Paul began Romans 8 by stating we have “no condemnation” for our sins, and now he states we have “no obligation” to follow the impulses and dictates of our flesh. Believers are not condemned for their sin, and they are not obliged to live to gratify their flesh any longer. Jesus put all of that to death for us!
Friend, do you know what a joy it is to be led by the Spirit of God? When being led by the Spirit, we are free from diet rules, free from calorie counting, free from weighing (finally!), free from tracking and measuring; but best of all, we are free to experience Jesus’ deep love for us, to savor Him and fellowship with Him in His sufferings, free to love and forgive others like we’ve been loved and forgiven at the cross. Being led by the Spirit is true freedom! “Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17), which is another way of saying we find freedom at the cross!
As I said at the beginning of this lesson, I was previously obsessed with food, but to God’s praise, He is using resurrection power to bring me out of that empty way of life! He is breaking the power of canceled sin and setting this captive free.
Sometimes it feels slow, it's a process, it will continue all our lives, but it's wonderful to be led by the Spirit so that we don't gratify the lusts of our flesh. It’s so exciting to walk with Him, to keep in step with Him as He walks us out of base living and brings us to a beautiful, terrible cross.
Wende's answer to the above question is highly instructive for us all:
"I am believer who is daily participating in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, whose life is now hidden with Christ in God. I am not of this world any more, but until I am called home to heaven, I must still live and function in this body of flesh and in this world of spiritual darkness. Praise God that He has given me His Holy Spirit! Because of that power, I am no longer a slave to sin, I am no longer obligated to obey my sinful desires! What a joy it is to daily practice walking in the Spirit and keeping in step with the Spirit. I see my growth as I practice. This is a process that requires my daily attention and self-denial."
Molly is thankful as well:
"I'm thankful to God for sending the Holy Spirit, for keeping his promise to send a helper. I'm thankful to have the guidance and the council and the comfort and the leading into truth, the transformative power, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead living in me! I'm thankful that I can go to God everyday and talk with him about all the things all the cares all the anxieties all the sin, and then I can look to what he did for me through Jesus Christ and appreciate that he sent his precious Holy Spirit to dwell in me and change my Heart of Stone into a heart of flesh! There is no other way, in my own power in My own Strength I could never overcome the laziness and gluttony, but I know and have faith in the fact that he who began a good work in me will complete it!"