Spirit driven

How do we know if a deed is Spirit driven/empowered? 

If it is done to bring honor (glory) to God out of love for and trust in God, i.e. if it is from (caused by), through, and to Him, it is Spirit driven as a response to God's first treating us with love, honor, value. 

Operating in the Spirit is the interaction (reciprocation) between the source of love (God) and the recipient (us). He (the source) is lovely and trustworthy (and has already fully proven his love in giving us Christ). His great love that was poured out on us in and through Christ (without our doing anything to provoke/cause it), awoke our hearts to love, calling (wooing) us to love, trust and follow him in response. Obedience is the fruit of God's love poured out on us through Christ.

A truly good deed must always start with God, i.e. there must be a lovely and trustworthy object (God) in which the subject (us) can place their love and trust. 

Why? 

1. Without a worthy object, there can be (and is) no love and trust in and by us. 

2. There is nothing more worthy of our complete love and trust other than the infinitely lovely and trustworthy. Only an infinitely lovely object can evoke and draw infinite love out of us.  

3. God is the source/cause of love, not us.

4. By design we receive and respond to love, not initiate it i.e. as God-like creatures (in his image) we are created for love and hard-wired to respond to love. When loved sacrificially, we respond with love.

It (a deed) also must end with God. That which is Spirit driven is also God-focused (targeted). God is not only the cause/source of love, He's also the end/object of it i.e. all that we do is done for the glory of God.

God is both the beginning/cause (the Alpha) and end (Omega) of all our actions/deeds. 

This means we are all about "showing him off" to others. To say it another way, if you are truly God-focused (all about advancing his honor/worth/glory) you are Spirit-driven.

But it doesn't stop here 

This is only where it starts. God is the cause and end of our actions, but to know this fully (for it to be perfected/completed), we must act on who he is for us by faith. Our faith must be perfected/ matured (just as Christ also learned obedience through His own struggles). 

To see, enter into and experience him as lovely and trustworthy in ever-increasing degrees, we must pursue him as such, i.e. by faith. Our (subjective) experience of him as a being that is loving and trustworthy (objectively) is contingent upon our actions, i.e. that he is loving and trustworthy. This goes beyond the proof of God's love already shown by his past sacrifice and involves our present engagement, ongoing experience, and participation in that love.

This doesn't mean he loves us more when we obey him, it means we enter more fully into that infinite, ¹unobstructed love he has already totally and fully secured for us in Christ. A love He had for us long before we ever lifted a finger for his sake (Rom 5:8). 

True faith always results in acting upon what we believe. As James said, "...Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works..." There must be movement towards (attraction to and affection for) the object of love, otherwise, our knowledge of God is only in our heads and not in our hearts. 

If there is no attraction, affection, and resulting action, there is no real and true love, i.e. we really don't know his love for us. If we did, we would (and will) act accordingly. 

To truly know his love is to be moved to love him in return, i.e. moved to action-obedience. It is not possible to truly know we are loved by God and not be moved to love him back.

1Jn_4:8  Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (i.e. it is impossible to know the God of love and not be moved to love) 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent (God's love for us moved him to act/send) his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 

1Jn_4:19  We love because he first loved us (and only because he first loved us). 

1Jn_5:2  By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 

1Jn_5:3  For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

Jas 1:22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing...

2:14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?...

18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! 20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. - James a disciple of Christ. 

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¹Unobstructed only on His side of the relationship. There is nothing that hinders or stops His love for us as His child in Christ, but there is plenty on our side that prevents us from fully entering into and experiencing that love. 

For a discussion on the difference between being spirit driven vs works driven click here.

For a discussion on being loved VS experiencing his love click here.

For a discussion on becoming who we already are in Christ click here.