Guided By The Spirit or Guided By The World?

I Corinthians chapter 2 immediately stands out when considering the questions posed in this devotion. First we see in 1st Corinthians 2:11 the following, "For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God...Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we might know the things that have been freely given to us from God. Continuing in 1 Corinthians 2:14 "But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned (meaning that they must be known by and through his spirit from God's Spirit and not through our natural understanding). So in these verses we see that we are not able to understand God through natural means but that it must be done through His Spirit to our spirit. Yet the majority of Christians live their lives guided by their natural selves. Meaning although they are saved by the grace of God and His son's death on the cross, their lives are lived through their own natural understanding, their own wisdom, their own knowledge, their own feelings, their own beliefs and their own intuition. These are the natural attributes of men and are not of the spirit but as we shall see in coming devotions they are the things of the soul and ultimately the world.

This is one very big reason that although saved; many Christians live a powerless life and struggle to know or obtain the victory and joy in their lives that is the free gift of God through His Spirit. Although saved, they struggle to live the life of promise and attempt to walk in the spirit and live a life of what they consider holy and righteous with very little success.

Understanding the relationship between our Body, Soul and Spirit will help lay the foundation to our living lives guided by God's Spirit and not our own understanding.

To be continued next week. God bless