Day 15 | Monday – Your Spiritual Antenna

Listen instead of reading

Read The Daily

If you have not been born of the spirit, you cannot walk after the spirit. You can only walk after the flesh. But if you are in the spirit, you can choose to walk in the new way of the spirit or the old way of the flesh  (Galatians 5:17)

What comes to mind when you think of the word spiritual? The Bible says to walk in the Spirit and live a spiritual life.  Sounds good. But what does it mean?  Here’s what spiritual does NOT mean: Spiritual does not mean religious. Or pious. Man Made religion may stimulate your intellect and feed your ego (flesh), but that doesn’t make it spiritual.

To define spiritual, it will help to know what your spirit is. Your spiritual antenna  
Your spirit is that part of you that makes you spiritually aware or God-conscious. For want of a better analogy, your spirit is like an antenna. Just as our physical bodies connect us to the physical realm, our spirits connect us to the spiritual realm. Just as we have natural senses (sight, smell, hearing, etc.), we have spiritual senses (e.g., intuition).  Think of a television. Just as a television can detect signals from both terrestrial transmitters and heavenly satellites, our souls can sense physical things via our bodies and spiritual things via our spirits. In the book The Spiritual Man, the soul as the medium or the middle bit between the spirit and the body. The spirit receives signals from the spiritual realm (e.g., the Holy Spirit) which it transmits to the soul, and the soul exercises the body in response to the spirit’s instruction.

Two ways to live
The continuous choice between the flesh and the spirit is not like choosing between two flavors of ice cream. It is a choice of life or death.  The way of the flesh leads us down a cursed path to self-destruction, but the way of the Spirit leads to a blessed and everlasting life (John 6:63, Rom. 8:13, Gal. 6:8).  For the followers of Jesus, walking in the spirit is the life-giving choice. But the problem is we are much better at walking after the flesh. We’ve been doing it all our lives.  Nearly every movie we watch, every song we hear, every book we read, and even some sermons reinforce the old message of self-reliance. “Work harder. Trust yourself. Follow these steps to a better life.”

Reflect and Journal: As you live and make choices this week, think about “the why” behind those decisions and who might be guiding them.

Prayer: Take time to pray for the following needs:
Leaders and staff who serve in CrossKids and for God to help our church disciple the next generation

Read Through The Bible With Us This Year!

4 x 6 Plan | Read: John 9:24-41 & 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10