Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hear­ing with faith? Are you so fool­ish? Hav­ing begun by the Spirit, are you now being per­fected by the flesh? (Gala­tians 3:2–3)

The Spirit-Filled Church: Find­ing Your Place in God’s Purpose

We recently noted an ongo­ing dis­cus­sion about the effort we’re called to make in our sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion. I believe Scrip­ture tells us that although we can do things that look like sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion, if those actions are done in the flesh they are sim­ply behav­ior mod­i­fi­ca­tion. It’s a change in the heart that is desired, not sim­ply an out­ward change in actions.

I’m cur­rently read­ing The Spirit-Filled Church: Find­ing Your Place in God’s Pur­pose, by Terry Virgo. Virgo takes this argu­ment one step fur­ther, show­ing us that using the law for sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion gives Satan the oppor­tu­nity to heap con­dem­na­tion on us. “The law always kills in the end,” Virgo notes.

This por­tion of The Spirit-Filled Church (avail­able for pre-order at Ama­zon and via Ama­zon in the U.K. here or world­wide from the U.K here) out­lines Virgo’s case. It’s in agree­ment with what we’re advo­cat­ing in our cur­rent Com­pleted by the Spirit series:

It is essen­tial for us con­stantly to rec­og­nize our death to law. It is no longer the basis for our rela­tion­ship with God and never will be. We are mar­ried to Christ and our ful­fil­ment as Chris­tians is bound up in our love rela­tion­ship with him.

Con­tinue Reading…