However, my question is: what does He energise us to do; and more specifically, how do I get that happening in my life? That's the most important part - how can I move from where I am, to there?
But before we do that, I want to look at some forces that actually also work inside you, and these are quite negative. Let's have a look in Romans 7:5, and here's another force that works inside you. It says in Verse 5:
“For when we were in the flesh, sinful passions, which were aroused by the law, were at work in our members, to bring forth fruit unto death”.
Notice something else is at work: sinful passions, or sin; and that's the same word 'work' as the word energise. So what its saying is: when we think of sin, we tend to think of it as something we do: I got angry; or I said words I shouldn't have said; or I did something wrong. We tend to think of it in terms of something you did.
What we seldom think is to actually think from a spiritual perspective; and what we don't realise is that sin is not something you did. It's more than that. Sin actually operates like a living entity in your life, and creates energy inside you. You have a think about this.
We know the Bible tells us that there's anger, which is sin. Now when you get really outrageously angry, have you got energy working inside you? What kind of energy have you got? You've got the energy of sin - and is it real? Oh oh oh, it's real! Wound up there, it stiffens your whole body, and your eyes start to glaze, and your nostrils start to snort, and you're saying and doing things you shouldn't be doing.
You go: oh, I shouldn't have been doing that. That was something energising your whole body; and did you remember the Holy Ghost, when that was happening to you? Not at all! He wasn't anywhere round. Now there's a different form of energy, and it's firing up inside you, and you're: grr-grr-grr, and kicking something, and there you are. Then you calm down again; now we can pray nicely and become aware of God again.
So - how many understand that experience? You probably had it on the way to church! You drove there and someone got in the way and grr-grr-grr-grr! Oh, I'm going to church, that's right, you know? Had a big row between husband and wife, grr-grr-grr and then coming up here - smile, I'm going to church - but the energy is still working inside you.
Sin is not some thing - it is a living, spiritual entity. When sin is in your life, it's not just something that sits there. It is something alive, operative, active; wanting to increase its hold over your life, and it produces death. It produces death! That means you become disconnected from God, and from people; and you become numbed or cold or insensitive; because a person who's dead is disconnected, and they're cold, and they're insensitive.
So when sin is operating in your life, there will be parts of your life where you are disconnected from people, where you're numb and dead, and there's something working in there to try and gain ground, like cancer.
So sin is not some thing. It's actually a living, spiritual entity that just grows; and if you let it, it'll rise up, and it'll dominate your mind. You can think of unforgiveness. Unforgiveness is not just something from your past. Unforgiveness is a living energy, that continues to work in your life, and it continues to try and reproduce itself so more unforgiveness is there.
Envy is the same. If you've got envy - ever remember when you got envious of someone? Oh, did you turn green? Was there energy flowing? You know, just get furious at something - the injustice of it!