The Law and the Gospel

Click on Title for Actual Devotional Reading before reading my thoughts
December 1st
My Utmost For His Highest
Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

My Thoughts
Through Adam, we are born spiritually dead. Through Jesus Christ, we are born-again spiritually. Romans 5:12 [ Death Through Adam, Life Through Christ ] Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— Unregenerated person means spiritually dead person. Sin is separation from God meaning spiritually dead facing eternal death. Born-again means spiritually alive facing eternal life. The concept is this: Sin is where an unregenerate person runs away from God, meaning that a person called a "fugitive" that as a sinner, it is a person's inclination is to flee from God. Death is universal spiritually and also by nature. Physically we are born alive however spiritually dead. When we have Jesus Christ in our lives, we no longer spiritually dead but spiritually alive even though our physical body will continue to decay and will die someday. A spiritually dead person cannot will himself to live anymore than a physically dead person can will himself to come back to life. If the dead person (spiritually or physically) is to come back to life he/she will have to be resurrected by God. In the spiritual realm this means he/she must be born from above. A spiritually dead person is without the Holy Spirit, therefore we do not have the "ability" to get saved on our own. We need the Holy Spirit to prick and quicken us to be alive. Without the Holy Spirit is TOTAL DEPRAVITY". The Holy Spirit is the only person that can quicken people to be saved. 1 Corinthians 2:14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. Acts 7:51 "You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit!” 1 Thessalonians 4:8 Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit. John 6:63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Romans 8:11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.