In 1 Corinthians 4:7, St. Paul confronted the Christian congregation at Corinth. Since they had the Holy Spirit, they thought they were in charge of their spiritual life—they were the owners, not the receivers. Paul wrote, “What do you have that you didn’t receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you did not?
Our whole life as the children of God is one of receiving. By Holy Spirit-given faith, because of Jesus, God the Father considers, declares, and makes us righteous. It’s all grace—and so we live by faith in His grace. We receive grace on top of grace from the fullness of the incarnate Christ in the Holy Spirit.
Where It All Begins
James 1:17: Every good and perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father who made the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
Psalm 36:9: With you [God] is the fountain of life; in your light, we see light.
Acts 17:28: In him [God] we live and move and have our being.
- What do these passages show about our life with God?
How It Becomes Real
Our life with God, however, doesn’t come by happenstance. The Holy Spirit—and the life the Holy Spirit gives—only comes to us in Jesus Christ. This means that our life with God doesn’t come from having spiritual powers or from self-generated development. No, it depends on Jesus Christ and what He gives us. Because we are joined to Christ, we continually receive our life from Him.
John 5:21: As the Father raises the dead and gives life, so the Son also gives life to those whom he chooses.
John 10:28: I [Jesus] give them [His people, His “sheep”] eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of My hand.
But how does Jesus choose to give us “eternal life”?
John 3:5, 16: I [Jesus] assure you: Unless someone is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God… For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one-and-only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
Titus 3:4-6:
When the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us—not because of righteousness that we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us in full measure through Jesus Christ our Savior.
Salvation is all God’s doing through His Son in the Holy Spirit. Because of that, our sinful nature could all-too-easily conclude, “Why bother with anything if it’s all God’s doing anyway.”
- What does such a conclusion show about what that person is getting right and wrong?
John 15:5: [Jesus speaking to His disciples:] “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
- How do we “remain” in Jesus (or, How does Jesus come to us)?
- What does Jesus imply by his word “remain” (Greek, meno, stay, live in, continue in)?
- Discuss how no one being able to snatch us out of Jesus’ hand (John 10:28) and remaining in Him, and the implication of walking away from Him, can both be true?
1 Corinthians 15:10:
By God’s grace, I [the Apostle Paul] am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them [the other apostles]—not I, of course, but God’s grace that was with me.
Because our salvation is all God’s doing, our sinful nature can conclude to do nothing in our life of sanctification, including our prayer life. Our sinful nature will always come to a sin-tainted conclusion in our life with God. Because of that, we never outgrow our need to repent or our need for instruction.
Jesus doesn’t offer us superhuman life. He doesn’t turn us into superheroes with extraordinary physical or mental powers. Instead, He swaps places with us. He joins us in our human life on earth so we can join Him in His life with God the Father.
By His union with us, we share in His sonship. His position with God the Father, His status and all His privileges as God’s only Son, His righteousness and His holiness, His access to the Father, His Father’s love and delight in Him, and the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit—all these are ours through faith in Jesus.
Yet we don’t possess these gifts by ourselves. We have them only as we receive them from Jesus. We have eternal life by believing in Him and receiving it from Him. In our lives of faith, we receive everything from Jesus.
Depending on Jesus
Romans 6:3-5:
Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glory, we too can walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will also be united with him in the likeness of his resurrection.
Galatians 2:20: I have been crucified with Christ; I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
2 Timothy 2:11-12: Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with Christ, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we disown him, he will also disown us.
Hebrews 3:14: We have become sharers [participants, communers] in Christ, if we hold firmly until the end the reality that we had at the start.
- What was “the reality we had at the start”?
- How does that reality become ours?
- How do we “hold firmly until the end”?
As we follow Jesus in the journey of faith, we receive from Him and share in His divine life as God’s Son.
