the Spirit-filled life

Here's a terrific sermon from Kyle on this crucial but oft-overlooked theme in the Christian life...

The Law can only instruct and hold us accountable. The Spirit lives inside the Christian to empower the believer-- whose part is to surrender and submit to the Spirit-- in order to live the life to which we're called.

This explains why Christ was in a hurry to leave-- saying that we were better off to have the Spirit here, than to have Him here! (See: John 14:26, John 16:7.) Imagine the difference between Phil Mickelson teaching you how to play golf vs. playing golf from within you.

Two great books on this topic: Watchman Nee's The Normal Christian Life and Ian Thomas' The Saving Life of Christ.

Kyle makes a number of other excellent, overview points: the need to pull weeds and to plant flowers; everyone wants the latter without the former; and digging out weeds is best done by getting to its roots.

Toward the end, he recommends three practices: "spiritual breathing", "filtered thinking", and "dying to self"-- and notes that these are somewhere between helpful and essential for living the abundant life to which God has called the Christian.