Cooler temperatures are creeping in and I’ve noticed that my house is cooler too.  Yes, our house needs a window and insulation update!  But before we get that done I’m going to need more jackets, sweaters, and blankets.  These are the dynamics required for staying warm and healthy in my house. 

There are signs available too that we need to attend to the spiritual dynamics of our life.  God has not left you dull, insensitive, and or unaware of the spiritual dependence required in your life.  The Christian that lives according to the Spirit of God will attend to the spiritual well-being of their life in Christ Jesus.  A person who declares that Jesus is Lord cannot afford to continue to live as if they are ignorant or unaware of the spiritual ebb and flow happening around them and in them.  God has rescued you from the fate of the proverbial “frog in the kettle!”  Paul describes this fate as one that is part of our past, our life before Jesus inhabited our lives via the Holy Spirit:

“So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.  They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.  Having lost all sensitivity they have given themselves over to sensuality as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.”  Ephesians 4:17-19  NIV

Instead the Holy Spirit has be give to us and our spirit that was dead to God is now alive to God.  Paul prays with confidence regarding this change saying, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you… (Ephesians 1:18)  And then Paul writes of this new reality in Ephesians 2:4-5: “Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions…”   The person who has been made alive to God through Jesus must now cooperate with the Holy Spirit by taking proactive action for living.  Paul writes:

“You, however, did not come to know Christ that way.  Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus.  You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”  Ephesians 4:20-24  NIV

The spiritual dynamics of life in the Spirit require me to recognize the reality of the natural or old self and respond by putting it off and putting on the new.  This is not just management of my attitudes or behaviours.  This is the conscious entrance into the new self created in Christ.  God has made this exchange possible and God has empowered us to participate.