Positive Identification

  Do you know someone who lives by the power of the Holy Spirit?  Testimonies and stories about those in whom the Spirit is evident are being gathered.  Please reply or post a story on the blog with only the first name of the person you know who lives by the Spirit.  Your contribution will be much appreciated!
    To help identify, or prompt recall of a person who lives by the Spirit, read carefully the following passage from 1 Corinthians.  The letter was written to a church that broadly wasn’t living by the Spirit, though they thought they very much were. The passage begins with a contrast and comparison of a believer and unbeliever when it comes to the things of the Spirit.
   The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.  The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?”  But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:14-16 ESV)
    This passage is pretty intense.  The natural person—literally, “a man of animal soul”—is unable to grasp the things of the Spirit. Specifically, the person without Christ has no ability to understand the wisdom of how God brought about salvation through Jesus Christ.  The identifying characteristic of the spiritual person, however, is that he or she knows and understands the mind of Christ-the “why’s,” the “what’s,” the “how’s,” the “who’s” and more.
   But even if a person believes in Jesus Christ, he or she may not be living by the Spirit. The next portion of the passage from 1 Corinthians makes a stunning observation. But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.  I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it.  And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh.  For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?  (1 Corinthians 3:1-3 ESV)
   In these two passages three kinds of people are described: the “natural person”—an unbeliever; “people of the flesh”—believers who don’t live by the Spirit, but rather only in the ways of common humanity; and the “spiritual person”—the believer who knows and understands the mind of Christ.
   Who do you know that demonstrates the “mind of Christ” in how they live?  Please submit their first name only and the way you have seen that person live by the Spirit.
   More to come!