Website owner:  James Miller

The Spirit of God within Us --- The Mark of True Sonship

   What is the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of God, which is 
   supposed to dwell within the Christian?  I think it is that 
   spirit within some people where they love God and all that he 
   represents --- Honesty, Goodness, Right, Justice, Morality, 
   etc..  It is a spirit that loves God and Goodness and eschews 
   Evil.  This spirit is the Spirit of God.  It is a healthy, 
   wholesome, buoyant spirit --- a spirit characterized by all 
   that is Honest, Right, Just, Decent and Good.  And, in 
   contrast, there is an opposite type of spirit, a Spirit of 
   Darkness, a spirit that finds enjoyment in the Wrong, the 
   Immoral, the Indecent, the Dishonest, and the Bad.  This spirit 
   is the Spirit of Satan and it is the spirit that appears to 
   characterize the vast majority of mankind, the general masses.  
   Most people seem to get great enjoyment from the Immoral, the 
   Wrong, the Bad --- as indicated by their humor, their off-color 
   jokes, their taste in entertainment, etc..  It is this spirit 
   of Badness and Darkness that rules them. 

   Who is the true son of God?  He is the man after God's own 
   heart and spirit --- a person who loves and values the same 
   things that God loves and values.  The man who loves Right and 
   Good just as God loves Right and Good.  We are all sons of God 
   (or children of God) in the sense that he created us all --- 
   but we are not all his sons in spirit.  It is like an honest, 
   good, right-thinking man who has a son.  The son is a son in 
   flesh.  That is a fact that nothing can change.  But is the son 
   a son in spirit?  He is if he grows up loving Goodness, Right, 
   Justice etc. as his father does, if he listens to what his 
   father teaches him concerning Right and Wrong and is an 
   obedient son and follows his father's ways.  Then he is a son 
   of his father not only in flesh but in spirit.  He is a son 
   after his father's own heart, a son his father can be proud of.  
   But, on the other hand, if he grows up following the ways of 
   Evil, loving and following the Wrong, the Immoral and the Bad 
   he is a son of his father in flesh but not in spirit.  There is 
   a wall between him and his father.  They are of the same flesh 
   but opposing spirits.  And what is really more important --- 
   being of the same flesh or of the same spirit?  What is the 
   most important type of sonship --- of the flesh or of the 
   spirit?  What makes for a son in truth (in the deepest, most 
   profound sense), being of the same flesh or of the same spirit?  
   Jesus said, "For whosoever shall do the will of my father who 
   is in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother."  What do 
   you think he meant? 


   Mar 1982