"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." (Gal 2:20).
The Christian life is an exchange life. We abandoned our lives on the cross in order to start living by a completely different life—a life that is divine. In our old life, we follow our desires, impulses, will, thoughts, etc. and we do all these things by our energy—the energy, or effort, of our flesh life. In the divine life (Christ) things are done by a different energy, and this energy that powers the divine life is called the Holy Spirit.
No, we do not live the divine life by our flesh's energy. First thing's first; we do not live the Christian life by our flesh life but by the divine life, and we do not live the divine life by our flesh's energy but by the Spirit. The moment we become born again we need to do a lot of reconfiguring. We must reconfigure ourselves not to depend and live by our life, but to live by the divine life. And we must also reconfigure ourselves to live the divine life not by our flesh energy, but by the Spirit.
"'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty." (Zec 4:6).
There is a way we do things by the Spirit rather than our own energy; we rest from our efforts and place ourselves in the hands of the Spirit, then we move and do things by the Spirit. This kind of way of living requires a lot of trust because you will be greatly tempted to do things by your effort. The flesh takes pride in his effort, he loves to accomplish things by his effort, and to declare that, "I did it". No, this is not about being humble and religious by ascribe your achievements to God—that is not what I am talking about here.
I am talking about learning to live a different way, doing everything by resting and moving by the Spirit. I am not talking about the Spirit asking you to do things. Oh, there are many ways you could misunderstand this if you do not know the relationship between the Life (Christ) and the Spirit. I wrote much about this in the last chapter of my book, "Christ; The Christian Spirituality". Most Christians have not begun to learn how to live by the Life, how then would they understand how to live this Life (Christ) by the Spirit.
Anyway, when we go into prayer, we are not to pray by our efforts. Rather, we must place ourselves in the hands of the Spirit, and start moving by the Spirit in the place of prayer. As you continue to press to do things this way, you will become awakened to the Spirit as a different energy other than that of the flesh. You would feel it, and it's uniqueness, it's greatness. He is the energy by which God lives out His life from eternity past. And since you are caught up in the life of the Godhead, you must also learn to live this way.
It is alien from what we know, yet powerful beyond that of the created. It feels somewhat intoxicating as it pulls that which is flesh into a sleep in order to take over. It feels transcended beyond creation and the laws of nature; it feels heaven like you are floating and moving in a realm where gravity does not exist. It is like oil that glides gently with ease, moving slow but steady until it strikes so powerfully or explode with such great measure of power.
Yes, it is very different from the energy that is of the flesh, and it involve relationship because this energy is a person. You must learn to trust him and not to do anything outside of him. To do something outside of him is to do it outside of the Life (Christ), and we are called to abandon our life on the cross and live by the divine life.
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