May 25 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Devotional

The New Testament teaches that anyone who is in Christ has the Holy Spirit. Those Christians err who think that they first have to believe in Christ and later will receive the Holy Spirit as a higher rung on the ladder.

It's true that some Christians are closer to Christ than others, and some are more yielded to the Spirit than others. "Having the Spirit" is not the same as "being filled with the Spirit." If we are made alive by the Spirit we haven't necessarily learned to walk by the Spirit.

But nobody can be in Christ unless he or she has the Holy Spirit. In fact, the only sure way of finding out whether people have the Spirit is to ask them what they think of Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 12:3; 1 John 4:2).

Sometimes the Bible uses the names of Christ and the Holy Spirit interchangeably. That happens in the part of Romans 8 we just read. "The Spirit of God in you" or "Christ in you" stands for the same reality. It means that we have gone over from a state of death to a state of life. To be sure, our "bodies" are still subject to death. Our present form of existence is not yet beyond the reach of sin and misery. At the same time we are alive. That new life comes to us from Christ, who died and rose again. The new life is in us through the Holy Spirit.

It is this daily living and daily dying that makes the Christian life so intense and sometimes so difficult. We must never be satisfied with what we have, spiritually, for as long as we are in this body we have not yet arrived. There is always more to unlearn and to learn. We must lose more of the old self so that we may gain more from God.

However, let's not confuse each other by separating the work of Christ from the work of the Spirit. Growing up in Christ and living by the Spirit is the same thing. And it's worth everything.

REFLECTIONS

"We must never be satisfied with what we have, spiritually." What does this mean for you personally?

Andrew Kuyvenhoven's Daylight, a modern devotional classic, was originally published by Paideia Press in 1977. This updated edition is copyright 2009 by Faith Alive Christian Resources. You can order a copy of this revised version of the book directly from the publisher.

A man of many accomplishments, Andrew Kuyvenhoven is probably best known for his contributions to Today (formerly The Family Altar), a widely-used monthly devotional booklet associated with the Back to God Hour. Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations for this updated edition of Daylight are from the Holy Bible: Today's New International Version copyright 2001, 2005 by the International Bible Society.