Living That Eternal Life

Romans 8:9-17

You, however, are not controlled by the flesh, but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. --

If God's Holy Spirit does not live in you, then you cannot be controlled by Him, only by your flesh, your sin-nature.

And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. --

God puts His Spirit into every person He gives New Birth to, to be born into God's own family, when he trusts Jesus to pay his eternal debt in his place on the Cross, and knows that Jesus rose from the dead. Otherwise, he doesn't belong to Him.

But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, --

When the Spirit of Christ enters a person, the power of sin that resides in his body, his sin-nature, cannot any more compel him into sin, because that power was defeated at the Cross, so is considered dead.

yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. --

The righteousness of Jesus Christ is put into that person, not earned by him, by the miracle of the New Birth, making his once-dead human spirit alive with the life of God's Holy Spirit.

And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead --

That's God's Holy Spirit.

is living in you, --

If you have been re-born spiritually, through your faith, your trust in Jesus Christ.

He Who raised Christ from the dead will also give Life to your mortal bodies --

God's Holy Spirit will give us also that Resurrection Life, that is eternal and supernatural, to these same bodies we're living in now, only changed and enhanced, like Jesus' body was when He was Resurrected.

through His Spirit who lives in you. --

This same Holy Spirit that will Resurrect our bodies is here, living in our bodies right now.

Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation--  --

Because of this, we are responsible to God for something.

but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. --

We never need to obey our fleshly urges or be primarily focused on meeting our worldly needs any more now.

For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; --

All of our worldly and fleshly needs and desires only fuel the natural, mortal life that will die.

but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, --

If you repent and turn from and repudiate whatever immoral or unlawful or simply spiritually useless things you used to do. This is what we are now obligated to do.

you will live. --

You will be living that eternal life you received, that will last forever.

Because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

If you are living that eternal life, that life of much higher quality than the merely natural, human life, that shows that God's Spirit in you is leading you to live that better life, because you are a son of God, Himself.

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear --

Any spirit that leads to fear cannot be God's Spirit.

but you received the Spirit of adoption [sonship].

God's Spirit causes us to be born into God's personal family, and will, at our Resurrection, pronounce us adult sons with all the rights and authority to "run the family business," His kingdom.

And by Him we cry, "Abba" (Da-da), "Father" (Daddy).

Children born into an intact family will often say as their first word, Da-da, which acknowledges that the father in the family is their Daddy. We are those children, born into God's family.

The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. --

That's how we know that we are, right now, today, God's own children.

Now if we are children, then we are heirs-- --

We just determined that we are His children, so that means we are also His heirs, He's put us in His "last will and testament."

heirs of God --

We stand to inherit God's riches.

and co-heirs with Christ, --

Everything Jesus will inherit, we will inherit with Him, as His co-heirs.

if, indeed, we share in His sufferings --

Jesus suffered, then received glory and riches and authority and power.

that we may also share in His glory. --

We will suffer as Christians, being persecuted by the world and those who belong to the world. Because we will also suffer, and we are God's children, then we also will inherit glory and riches and authority and power with Jesus, to rule with Him in His kingdom forever.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!