The Holy Spirit helps Christians to do what is right
1 Now we know this: God has forgiven those people who are united with Christ Jesus. God will never say that they are guilty. 2 God's Spirit has given us a new life. God's Spirit now rules in our lives and he has made us free. Sin and death no longer have authority over us.
3 The Law that God gave to Moses could not make us free like that. We were too weak to obey his Law because we are human. But God has done what his Law could not do. He sent his own Son to become a person like us. His human body was like the body of people who do wrong things. God's Son died as a sacrifice to take away the punishment for our sins. In that way, God destroyed the power of sin over people who are weak and human. 4 God did this so that we could become right with him, as his Law commands. We can be right with God, if we live with God's Spirit as our guide. We do not do what our weak human thoughts want us to do.
5 Some people do what their weak human thoughts want them to do. They think about the things that will make them happy. Other people live with God's Spirit as their guide. These people think about what will make God's Spirit happy. 6 People who let their human thoughts rule them will die. But people who think about what God's Spirit wants will have life with God. They will have peace inside themselves. 7 If our weak human thoughts rule us, we become God's enemies. People like that do not want to obey God's Law. They are not even able to obey it. 8 People who let their weak human thoughts rule them cannot make God happy.
9 But you are not people who obey your weak human thoughts. Instead, you obey God's Spirit as your guide. That is true if God's Spirit is really living in you. If anyone does not have Christ's Spirit in them, that person does not belong to Christ. 10 But, if Christ lives in you, you have a new life because of his Spirit. Your body will die one day because of the power of sin. But your spirit lives because Christ has made you right with God. 11 God raised Jesus, to make him alive again after his death. Now God's Spirit lives in you. So God, who raised Christ from death, will also cause your human bodies to live again. He will do that by his Spirit who lives in you.
12 So, my Christian friends, we must not obey what our weak human thoughts tell us to do. We no longer have to live like that. 13 If you agree to live in that way, you will die. Instead, you should let God's Spirit help you with his power. Then you can stop doing the wrong things that your bodies want to do. As a result, you will have life with God.
14 All those people who live with God's Spirit as their guide are God's children. 15 The Spirit that you have received from God does not make you serve him like slaves. That would make you afraid again. No. God's Spirit causes you to become God's children. As a result, we call God ‘Abba, our Father.’ 16 God's Spirit himself causes us to know that we are God's children. God's Spirit and our own spirits agree together that this is true. 17 Because we are God's children, we also know that we will receive good things from him. Those are the things that he has promised to give to his children. Together with Christ, we will receive the things that God has kept for him. That is true if we agree to suffer as Christ did. Then we will also enjoy life in heaven as Christ does.
8:15Abba means Father in the Aramaic language.
