Part 1 of 2 -

What Are We As Christians To “Do”?

By Arthur J Licursi

We all face question upon question in our daily living as to how to deal with the situations that come to us in our daily life. For Christians who want to walk with the Lord, but live in the real world, there are always these kinds of questions.

Since we as Christians under grace and not law (Rom 6:14) we have a new way of living. It is by the law or operation of “the spirit of life in Christ Jesus” within our spirit.

Romans 8:2 (NIV) because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
1 Corinthians 6:17 (NIV) But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

I was recently asked a question in one of my Bible studies where I was teaching on the subject of living by “The Sense of His Spirit of Life Within” as the Christians spiritual governor (Lord). The question was this. “Aren't there mundane situations and things in life we just need to do without being knowingly “led of the Lord?” The example used was “Should I buy that delicious pastry even though I know its not good for me – does God even care about my choice in this matter?”

Spontaneous Living:

My answer to the question is "Yes, absolutely, we must do what we know to do. We do not need an audible “Thus saith the Lord – “yes,” to guide us in every response we may make in to life’s situations and choices…but we definitely will know when He says NO!” We will have a sense of No, which is deep within. Life in the Lord should come to be automatic and spontaneous for a maturing Christian who is willing to led of the Lord and has learned what it is to be “led by the Spirit” (Rom 8:14).

Consider this illustration. Living and choosing spontaneously is just as it is when we are healthy physically, we don’t think about how to walk, – and we just walk without any thought of it. But walking in this way was not always so; one day after crawling at first, we took our first steps, and even then we fell many times. But after learning to walk we have it fixed within as part of our being, it becomes automatic. And so it is walking with the Lord. As we are taught of Him through the experiences of life – sometimes we suffer by falling (failing) in some area – but then after a time we learn and come to have this walking by His life fixed in our soul as part of our new normal way of living.

E.g., Similarly, at first the carpenter who is in training measures two or three times before cutting, just to be sure, but after he has matured in his craft what he has learned in his craft has become fixed and it is then automatic without re-measuring before cutting.

Some may say – “How can this walking spontaneously be so easy; can I just presume my sense within to do something is okay?” Yes, you can presume since that trust is built upon faith in Him and His word that tells us.

1) Christ is our “one life” at our core deep within our spirit. Galatians 2:20 ⁽AMP) I have been crucified with Christ [in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me… We possess the “mind of the Lord” (1Cor 2:16) intuitively.

2) It is God who is working through us - Philippians 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

The caveat is this - when the sense of the innermost voice that we now have by “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” tells us NO! – then we should not do that thing we were about to do! This is what it is to “walk in the spirit” so as not to “fulfill the lust (desires) of the flesh” (Gal 5:16, 18, 25).  One other caveat is when we are confronted by an issue of the “common law,” which I will explain in the next installment.