Commissioned: Powered Up: Living With the Holy SpiritSample

Living by the Spirit

Earlier we saw how Saint Paul’s letter to the Roman church explains our slavery to sin and declares that we have been set free by Jesus Christ. God has not only forgiven our sin, but he has also given us the power to overcome it—the Holy Spirit! We are too weak to obey God’s law, but the Holy Spirit works in us to enable us to do what we could never do in our own strength, to actually fulfill God’s law.

In Saint Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia, he returns to this theme of life in the Spirit. Here he says that love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are fruits of the Spirit—the source of these qualities in our lives is not ourselves, but the Holy Spirit. When we cultivate a relationship with God, these fruits will grow in our lives. Apart from that relationship with God, these things will never develop.

Paul speaks here of two options: (1) life according to the flesh, and (2) life according to the Spirit. When Paul contrasts the flesh and the spirit, he is not talking about two parts of the human being, one material and one immaterial. He is not teaching us to despise our bodies or to become otherworldly. He is speaking of two realities: (1) human life without Christ, inclined to sin and powerless against sin, and (2) human life in Christ, a new life empowered by the Spirit of God.

To live according to the Spirit means to live a life of relationship with God and reliance on his grace. This begins with developing a rhythm of receiving his grace through the eucharist and the sacrament of reconciliation. In the Eucharist, we declare afresh that we are in Christ, with him in his death and in his resurrection to new life, and in the sacrament of reconciliation, we deal honestly with the sin that remains in our lives. Life in the Spirit also means developing disciplines of prayer and devotion that are tailored to our own needs for grace. But these activities are not a system of works by which we seek to impress God, but avenues of grace in which we meet with Him and receive the power of the Spirit.

Stop, think and pray:

What spiritual disciples are we practicing? Developing this personal relationship with God is up to each of us, and exploring the rich options—rosary prayers, the divine offices, eucharistic adoration, Lectio Divina, the many great videos and podcasts, etc.—is an ocean of grace in which to swim! Let’s review our devotional practices and decide what habits we want to build for this season. And let’s always remember not to make our devotional practice a law but an avenue to a relationship with Christ and to the graces of the Holy Spirit.