“And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” (Romans 8:11)
Food For Thought: I have heard this particular verse quoted most of my life—usually in the context of praying for the healing power of the Holy Spirit for a physical malady. I have received prayers, and I have offered prayers using this verse as a faith builder—that the same Spirit of God who raised the body of Jesus from death is dwelling in us, therefore we can expect that same resurrection power to bring divine life to our physical bodies as well. And to be sure, I believe that to be true.
What never hit me until this moment is the Biblical context in which this verse is placed. Up to this point in Romans, Paul has extensively been comparing the bondage to sin we experienced while living under the law with the freedom from sin we have living under the Lordship of the resurrected Christ. He has shared his own struggle with sin—of doing what he shouldn’t and not doing what he should. And he has been quite realistic about this back-and-forth wrestling match that goes on in our lives between sin-bondage and Spirit-freedom.
And then he drops this truth on us: We are not alone in this struggle with sin. We don’t have to be disheartened by the overwhelming nature of the spiritual contest we are in. To be sure, we experience a strong pull back into the slavery from which our sinful natures were freed. But praise God, we have an infinitely stronger, incomparably more powerful, indefatigable Person who is dwelling within us and is fighting for us, helping us to overcome sin—and that Person is the Holy Spirit. And with him in us and for us, we cannot lose—if we’ll cooperate with him.
If we work with and walk with the Holy Spirit, we then can tap into the same force he exerted in the lifeless body of Jesus to reconstitute each dead cell and catalyze his breathless spirit to produce something that had never happened before, something that the master of sin, the devil, never counted on: The first fully resurrected man. Moreover, this first fully resurrected man was just the beginning, because all who then accepted Jesus by faith, including you and me, entered into that same resurrection life with that same indwelling resurrection Spirit to enable them to live in that same resurrection power that will not only heal their sick bodies, and not only guarantee their immortality, but will empower them each and every day to resist the pull of sin and live the victorious, overcoming Christian life.
On this day, at this very moment, the same Holy Spirit that coursed through the body of our Lord and brought him back to life again is coursing through you.
Wow! Sin, suffering, and sickness doesn’t stand a chance!
Prayer: Holy Spirit, quicken my mortal body today so that I may live above sin, be healed from all my diseases, and face every circumstance, good or bad, with the knowledge that victory is mine through the resurrection reality of my risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
One more thing… “We are to be re-made. All the rabbit in us is to disappear—the worried, conscientious, ethical rabbit as well as the cowardly and sensual rabbit. We shall bleed and squeal as the handfuls of fur come out; and then, surprisingly, we shall find underneath it all a thing we have never yet imagined: a real Man, an ageless god, a son of God, strong, radiant, wise, beautiful, and drenched in joy.” —C.S. Lewis
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