THE GREATER SPIRIT

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world. Those people belong to this world, so they speak from the world’s viewpoint, and the world listens to them. But we belong to God, and those who know God listen to us. If they do not belong to God, they do not listen to us. That is how we know if someone has the Spirit of truth or the spirit of deception.

1 John 4:4-6

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

In a prior writing, I shared that one cannot be living for the world's ways and in God's ways at the same time. For the ways of God run counter to the ways of the world.

The world we live in encourages sin and treats it as acceptable behavior. This is because the people who are in the world and of it are being led by the spirit of deception, the spirit of the antichrist issued out by Satan. This spirit of deception makes people feel comfortable pursuing all the desires of their hearts, desires that include an insatiable quest for sexual satisfaction, money or the material possessions it can buy, and fame and prestige. Self satisfaction and self fulfillment is most important, definitely preferred over self sacrifice.

Indeed, the enticements of the world are many and unfortunately, a multitude take the bait every day, allowing themselves to be pulled away from the God who made them, a God who expects a completely different lifestyle from what the world offers.

And that’s the way Satan operates, right?

His main mission is to take anything God intends for good and turn it toward evil.

But here’s the thing. Every single human being has a choice as to whether they will prescribe to the world’s ways or the Lord’s. When they choose the latter, embracing His offer of salvation and becoming a new creation through belief in Jesus, His Son, they gain the indwelling of a different spirit, a greater Holy Spirit (capital S) which serves as a deposit of the eternal heavenly inheritance yet to come (2 Corinthians 1:22).

This gift of the Holy Spirit, granted freely from God, not only guides us in the way of righteousness, the ways that Jesus lived which make us Christ-like or Christian, it also allows believers to communicate with one another in a common language of truth through the inerrant, unchanging Word of the God Most High. We find John discussing this along with the superiority of the Holy Spirit in today’s passage, verses four through six of 1 John, chapter 4. There he writes:

But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world. Those people belong to this world, so they speak from the world’s viewpoint, and the world listens to them. But we belong to God, and those who know God listen to us. If they do not belong to God, they do not listen to us. That is how we know if someone has the Spirit of truth or the spirit of deception.

Writing to his brothers and sisters in Christ, we find John giving them assurance that no matter how evil the world becomes - a world that rejects (and often hates) God, His Son, and all who believe in either – they have the victory because the Holy Spirit within then, the Spirit that “lives in” them, is greater than “the spirit who lives in the world (aka the spirit of the antichrist).

Note here the communication gap between the people of the world and the people who are in God.

The “people” who “belong to the world” always will “speak from the world’s viewpoint” and they find an audience in those who are also in the world, those who will listen to them.

Conversely, those who have the greater Holy Spirit living within will easily communicate with others who also have the Spirit because they will listen, unlike those who may be in the world who hear the same words.

In the end translation, the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, speaks the things of God while the spirit of the world (the spirit of the antichrist) only speaks from a worldly perspective which is the same as saying they speak from Satan’s view on things.

If you’re reading this and are in Christ today, give thanks for the gift of the Holy Spirit who dwells within you and communicates the will and word of God. If you’re reading this and you have not believed in Jesus as your Savior, denying the greatest gift God has freely given, make today the day of your salvation and gain the amazing power of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit who is greater than the spirit of the world.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.