“If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation.” This is the “unseen” that we were urged to focus on last week. The point is that we can only know about a new life in Christ if we have experienced this ourselves. The bad news is we have to let go and die emotionally to our idols in this life in order to experience the new life.
· Like the scene from Raiders of the Lost arc where the hero has to step onto a glass bridge he can’t see
· This life is a training ground – a test of faith
· We are not just bodies – we are spirits that have a body and soul
· We need to understand how this works in practice and affects our new life in Christ
1. Our Body: Our Physical / sensing intelligence
In the Creation story God makes a man out of clay and breaths the life into him:
· Body is red circle – in touch with the physical world – senses
· Body needs things to survive – has desires for other things that give comfort and pleasure
· The desires of our body may conflict with what the Bible teaches us is holy behaviour – loving God & N
2. Our Spirit: Our Intuitive / spiritual intelligence
Intuition is when we just know something – without knowing how or why we know:
· Falling in love – knowing who you are going to marry my story, Nickey Gumble
· Putting the sailboat on the car
· Experiencing the love, joy and peace of the Holy Spirit – celebrating Eucharist, Healing
3. Our Soul: Mind, Will and Emotions
Our soul is the meat in the sandwich – where the spiritual battle between the desires of our spirit – and the sometimes unholy and sinful desires of our body and mind collide:
· God gives us free will - we make the decision
· If we follow our spirit we grow in holiness and the Holy Spirit can come a live in us
· If we follow our body - we may pollute our spirit with sin guilt and weaken our spirit
4. Our New Life in Christ
This is a lifelong journey as we navigate the struggles and temptations of life:
· Begins in baptism when we receive the Holy Spirit
· Grows as we read the Bible, pray, worship, do works of love and grow in a love relationship with Jesus
· Spiritual life can be weakened if we fail to grow, continue polluting our soul with sin and fail to “come to Jesus” for forgiveness
· Forgiveness from Jesus is urgent- the love of God is like a holy fire and anything unholy in our soul and spirit must be covered by His shed blood before we can come into God’s presence
· We all need forgiveness every week – why we always have a time for confession and absolution in services
· Good news is God is like the Prodigal son story - the desire of His heart is to restore us to right relationship
· Really good news is that our new life in Christ is a life of love, joy and peace
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