{"id":5807,"date":"2013-05-18T16:59:18","date_gmt":"2013-05-18T13:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/?p=5807"},"modified":"2013-05-18T16:59:18","modified_gmt":"2013-05-18T13:59:18","slug":"reflection-on-rom-814-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/reflection-on-rom-814-15\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflection on Rom 8:14-15"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Verse 14 reads: <em>\u201cAll who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.\u201d<\/em> The first part is crucial: <em>\u201cAll who are led by the Spirit of God\u2026\u201d<\/em> It is not enough to receive the Spirit of God or to pray to Him. We need to be led by Him, or, in other words, to walk in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit leads our mind to the truth and He leads our will to overcome fear, laziness and sin. In verse 13 we read: <em>\u201c\u2026<\/em><em>if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.\u201d<\/em> God\u2019s Spirit strengthens our spirit and our will in resisting the process of self-destruction which started with the infection by original sin. <!--more-->The expressions \u2018old self\u2019, \u2018heart of stone\u2019, \u2018original sin\u2019, \u2018corrupt nature\u2019, \u2018negative core\u2019 or \u2018evil root\u2019 can be used as synonyms for this process of self-destruction in us. This bears poisonous fruits \u2013 sins. Sin has its power in lies. We easily believe in lies and obey the spirit of lies, just like Eve in the Garden of Eden. On the other hand, our corrupt nature does not want to believe and obey God and His Word. Various pagan philosophies, modern psychologies or theologies distort the truth, the spirit behind them being the spirit of lies and death. To be led by the Spirit of God basically means obedience to the voice of conscience and God\u2019s laws, i.e. obedience to God.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In interior prayer, we surrender our past and our future to the will of God. Let us do so at least for one minute every day. At that moment we realize Christ\u2019s death and our death too. The death of Jesus is the way to the arms of the Heavenly Father (Lk 23:46). It is the narrow way to eternal glory (Mt 7:14). This one minute is our preparation for a happy minute of death, when our spirit is freed from the slavery of our soul, from the prison of our body and from all vanity. We experience the reality of our death united with Jesus\u2019 death. Here in the obedience of faith we commend our spirit into the Father\u2019s arms through the narrow way of Christ\u2019s death. This is encompassed in the mystery of our baptism (Rom 6:3-5). As our spirit is separated from the soul and from the vanities of the world, it is true about us: <em>\u201cBlessed are the poor in spirit\u201d<\/em> (Mt 5:3). In this minute we experience loving God with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our strength (Lk 10:27). This is the first and greatest commandment. <em>Question<\/em>: Have you ever loved God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength? Was it yesterday? Was it today?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">If we are led by the Spirit of God, we are sons of God (v. 14) and we have received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, \u201cAbba, Father\u201d (v. 15). The Spirit of God bears witness to our spirit that we are children of God (v. 16), and heirs of God also, sharing in His glory (v. 17). Nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ (v. 39).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em><strong>Download:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Reflection-8_14-15.doc\">Reflection on Rom 8:14-15<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Verse 14 reads: \u201cAll who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.\u201d The first part is crucial: \u201cAll who are led by the Spirit of God\u2026\u201d It is not enough to receive the Spirit of God or to pray to Him. We need to be led by Him, or, in other [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5807"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5807"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5809,"href":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5807\/revisions\/5809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}