Thoughts From Romans 8

 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.5 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. 7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. 9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.  Rom. 8:1-9

          Romans 8 separates the whole world into two camps - those who have the Holy Spirit in them and those who don't, or the saved and the lost, or the dead and the reborn. Paul tells us that the definition of "to be saved", the Christianese that we throw around, is to be regenerated by the Holy Spirit. He comes inside at our point of repentance and faith in the sacrifice of Christ for our sins and His resurrection from the dead and breathes life into our dead soul that has been stillborn since Adam's sin.

          I recently went to a baseball game with my friend Bob who is an avid fan and got his name on the wall for having season tickets for so many consecutive years. When he asked me if I wanted to go see it, I bantered, "No thanks, my name is in the Lamb's Book of Life", to which he replied, "How do you know? We can go down and SEE my name." He's right about one thing, I can't see my name, yet I just by faith believe it's in there. Paul says in 2Corinthians that we are to examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith or you could say to see if our name is in the book. What are some self-examination tools we have to see if the Spirit is truly inside us?

       First, we see in verse 5 that our minds would be set on what the Spirit desires. What does the Spirit desire - to magnify God. If our mind is set on how can I achieve glory, then our minds are governed by the flesh rather than the Spirit. Am I into self-promotion or God promotion? Do I desire He increase, and I decrease or vice-versa? The flesh and the Spirit butted heads last night at the Charlie Kirk funeral. You could see those who used the platform for advancement of self, power, party versus those who just wanted Christ to be magnified. The problem is that most who are self-promoting are probably deluded into thinking they are saved. That's why self-examination is so important.

       Secondly, in verse 6 we see that the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. Paul says in Phillipians that those run by the flesh have their minds focused on Earthly things, but our citizenship is in Heaven, and we eagerly await Christ's return. If we are truly saved, we should be thinking like aliens, pilgrims, sojourners, ambassadors, deployed soldiers, all those terms used in the epistles emphasizing that we are just visiting this planet and our real home is in Heaven. If you ask people that claim to be Christians, they will acknowledge that fact. But when you examine their use of time, money, you would see that they are treating this world as their home. But our calling isn't to judge them but rather look at our own calendar, checkbook, social media, apps, etc. What kingdom is our mind fixed on - Earth or Heaven?

      Lastly, in verse 7 Paul says that the mind controlled by the Spirit desires to obey God's law or we should be desiring to live Holy lives or imitators of Christ. We should be asking "What would Jesus do?" in every situation. Jesus said, "if you love Me you will obey my commandments. Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord' and don't do what I say?" If we are reserving the right to decide which of God's commands we will obey, like loving and forgiving our enemies for example, or sexual mores which may not represent contemporary thinking, we are being run by the flesh. It's easy to point at someone like Trump who said, "Charlie loved his enemies but I hate mine.", and judge which eternal camp he is in but once again, that's not the point. We are to self- examine and see which "drivers" of our life have a "firewall" to obeying Jesus and tear those walls down in complete surrender.

        Don't deceive yourself about something so important as your soul. We often watch reality shows and comment how self-unaware some contestants are. (We watched Traitors season 3 and Tom Sandoval may be the most self-unaware person ever) Yet our flesh thrives on self-deception, and we must examine ourselves to make sure that we are true believers. Use these tests and see.