<< Week 18 >>
Go through the Study Guide by Dr. Kevin Zadai
Consider The Project given in this Lesson
Warrior Church Home Fellowship Study
Dr. Kevin L. Zadai
Staying in the Spirit
"Don't try to finish in the flesh what you began in the Spirit!"
~ Dr. Kevin L. Zadai
After you watch the video and read the study notes on this page, answer these questions here on the Blog mentioned above:
O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?
—Galatians 3:1-3
DISCUSSION:
Jesus said the Holy Spirit would come, and He would never leave you. He would be like Jesus as your advocate, a stand-by and lawyer type, who would never leave you as an orphan. He came like a dove, but He is not a bird. When I met Him, He was just like Jesus, and He reminded me of Jesus. Paul the Apostle was talking to the people in the early church in Galatia, and he was encouraging them to stay in the Spirit, and he said, you were doing so well; who cast a spell on you? Who bewitched you and broke your stride?
He was very frustrated with them because they weren't walking in the Spirit of God. Like the early church, we should be aware and not fulfill the lusts of the flesh but stay in step with the Spirit. Jesus took care of the issue of sin, so there is no condemning or accusing voice, and the mercies of the Lord are new every morning.
When you woke up this morning, it was a clean slate, and your sins are gone. We are a new creation. Our new lives are in the spirit. When we became born again, everything was made new. Our whole life is new because the Spirit of God is taking us into a new realm of the spirit. In this new way of life, we can yield to joy. We can yield to kindness and love. We can yield to all the different things that the Spirit of God has for us.
He is the central person right now that's on the Earth with us. If you walk in the spirit, the Bible says, you please God. We can't obey the law perfectly on our own, but with the Holy Spirit inside of us, we can fulfill the law. He's going to help you and not lead you astray. With the help of the Holy Spirit, you will not only be pleasing to God, but you're going to end up in your destiny because that's where the Spirit of God is going to take you.
o Ask yourself this question: When you received the Holy Spirit, did you receive Him so that you can obey the law of Moses or so that you could walk in the fulfillment of the law and honor God? Discuss the benefits of walking in the fulfillment of the law and living by the Spirit.
YIELD TO THE SPIRIT NOT TO THE FLESH
Romans 7:15 NLT: I don't really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do what I hate.
• Paul is describing what it's like when he doesn't yield to the Holy Spirit.
• He was yielding to the flesh. He was trying to fulfill the law on his own.
• Jesus said, "I came to take the yokes off of people," and the Pharisees were putting them back on and chaining people up.
• The Gospel breaks yokes and chains off of people and sets them free.
• Teach others that the Spirit of God leads them into a fulfillment of all the commands of God.
• Jesus said, "If you love God with all your heart, and you love your neighbor as yourself, you fulfill all the commandments."
• If everyone loved God and loved their neighbor as themselves, we wouldn't need police officers or laws because we would be walking in the law of love.
Warrior Church Home Fellowship Study
Dr. Kevin L. Zadai
• If you love others, you won't want to harm, defraud, or hurt them in any way. You'd be thinking of them more than yourself.
• If we all look out for each other, then we won't need all these rules or laws and law enforcement or people watching over us; we would be mindful of each other.
o Take a moment and allow the Holy Spirit to minister to your hearts. Welcome Him to have His way and release any chains that are binding. Pray for the condition of your hearts to be open to receiving all that the Holy Spirit wants to do today to see His love manifest in you.
DEFEATING THE ENEMY WITH UNITY
One of the first sins that happened immediately after Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden was with Cain. We see the first murder, but right beforehand, there's something that was even more troubling because it was the sign that murder was about to happen. It was when Cain didn't do what was right. He was given a way out. God went face to face with Cain to talk him out of it, in a fallen state. God said, to Cain, if you do what is right, you will be accepted, but he did not, and He chose to kill Abel. It takes a lot of energy to go out and kill your brother. It's harder to pull someone down than it is to come up. When Cain killed Abel, God asked him, where is your brother? Cain responded with, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
This is more troubling to hear because, yes, you are. We're all supposed to be helping one another. If we as a whole came together and agreed, it would be like Jesus said, “If two or more agree as touching any one thing, it shall be done for you” (see Matthew 18:19). It would be like when the Tower of Babel was being built, and God said, these people are evil, they're bent on evil, if we don't confuse them and stop them, whatever they imagine, they're going to be able to do.
God had to come down and stop them because anything they imagined, they would be able to do. It was because of their unity. It's a key, and satan knows he has to keep people divided in the body of Christ because if we agree on anything, it's going to defeat him every time.
o What are some things that you can agree upon as the body of Christ? How can you help one another at this time in the Earth? There are no limitations in the kingdom. How can you push through what might be happening in the natural to see the Spirit of God be made manifest in Earth?
o Discuss the significance of starting in the spirit and finishing well. Talk about the severity of Paul's question to the Galatians concerning who put a curse on them or bewitched them that they would allow starting in the spirit and ending in the flesh.
o What are some signs that you might be going in the way of the flesh rather than the spirit?
o Has your connection to God turned from the heart to more of a surfaced thing? Have you entered into a works-based relationship? Remember, your works are birthed out of your faith, but your faith is expressed through action. We don't do things to make God happy with us. He's happy with you because of Jesus' blood.
PRAYER:
Father, in the name of Jesus, I thank you for all my family all over the world. I thank you, Lord. We here at Warrior Church and at Warrior Notes, we love you, Father, and we lift our hands and worship you right now. We thank you that we will not yield to the flesh. We, Lord, will always yield to your Holy Spirit so that we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. We thank you, Father, that you give us strength and boldness and discernment to know when we are getting over in the flesh. And I thank you, Father, you're going to have grace and mercy on all. We just turn ourselves in right now, and we yield to your spirit in the name of Jesus.
DR. KEVIN L. ZADAI
