God's Type of Life

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." 2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV)

Ever since my recent valley of death medical experiences, I have become additionally interested in what it is to be alive. I also have wanted to understand God’s type of life.

My second-birth birthday party happened after my Sunday school class, when I was seven years old. Mrs. Smithers, my teacher, prayed with me after telling me about Jesus and I was born again. I was so happy that on my way home I felt as if I was walking on a cloud. I had received heart-lifting joy. Years later, I learned I had also been given valuable gifts.

I learned that the Holy Spirit is the distributor of God’s gifts:

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, ...” James 1:17 (NKJV)

The Spirit is the chosen executor of Almighty God’s will. The Father is the planner, the Son is the revealer, and the Spirit is the distributor.

“... no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.” 1 Corinthians 2:11 (NKJV)

Having been “given” a gift doesn’t necessarily mean the gift will be used. Most gifts soon lose their importance if they aren’t a regular part of life.

A Type of Person

If we desire to live God’s type of life we should choose: brave, powerful, loving, and sound-minded (the 2 Timothy 1:7 life). Each of God’s children is given, at the moment of their second birth, a reflection of God’s type of life: God is all-powerful; He is love; He is in control.  A born-again person can live out God’s type of life by yielding through supplication prayers to Almighty God. The Spirit of God lives inside the fabric of a born-again personality and desires to be asked to take control.

This troubled world needs God’s children to radiate the divine qualities they have living inside them. Each day we are permitted to live is because He wants us to share His power, love, and sound mind. Every believer is a short-term missionary.

The Valley of Death

Hopefully, before we take our final walk through the Valley of Death, we will have matured into becoming what our Father gave us the day we took Jesus as our Savior and Lord, the 2 Tim. 1:7 life. Growing into a Spirit-controlled Christian; we will become a successful Christian. By yielding to the Spirit of God a believer experiences what they were changed into, a new creature.

The Testimony of a Former Zombie

Having been zombies, or dead men walking, you "were dead in trespasses and sins.” Eph. 2:1 (NKJV) God’s children can now choose to either live energized by the Holy Spirit’s life: power, love, and sound-mind/self-control, or fall back into being controlled by their flesh. Gal. 5:16-25 reveals the identities of the Spirit and the flesh and how they are constantly at war with each other.

What We Need to Do

Not approaching God in supplicatory prayer, which asks for His life to flow through us, produces an imitation of God’s type of life. (The flesh guarantees this.) Power will have the lusts-of-the-flesh flavor which will include wrath. Love will have a rotting smell to it as we seek for love in all the wrong places. Self-control will have fleshly selfishness coloring its fabric. 

Pray today to be controlled by the Spirit of God and the power, love, and sound mind you received at your best birthday party.

Copyright © 2017 Bob Segress, Ph.D. Used by permission.