What’s on your mind? In today’s passage, Paul tells us that there are basically two possibilities: to focus on the things of the flesh, or on the things of the Spirit. Everything that occupies our time and attention falls into one of these two categories, categories which reflect the nature of our relationship with God.

For what does it mean to be focused on the things of the flesh? In verse 7, he says people who have such a mind are at enmity with God – they are hostile toward God. These people do not believe they are subject to God’s law – they do whatever they please and reject God’s righteous rule. Because of living in such rebellion, verse 8 tells us that they are unable to please God.

But opposition to God has consequences. Verse 15 points out that those who are hostile toward God are trapped in fear, not only of God’s punishment, but of death. In fact, verse 6 tells us that to be carnally minded, to make this world our heart’s desire leads to death. Verse 13 repeats this thought – living according to the flesh means that we will die, and since those with a fleshly viewpoint think this world is all that matters, being separated from the material world in death is the worst thing they can imagine.

There is, of course, an alternative to living in the flesh – living in the Spirit. Verse 1 tells us that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. And if we are no longer condemned, that means those who are trusting in Christ no longer have any need to fear God’s judgment.

Why is that? Because of the basic truth of the gospel that we find in verses 3 and 4. For the good news is that God sent Jesus, His own Son, into this world in the flesh – that means He has a body just like ours that could suffer and die. That’s why He could take our punishment on Himself, the death penalty that our sin, our continual breaking of God’s law, deserves.

Better still, forgiveness from Christ and union with Christ always goes along with a filling, an indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God. Verse 9 makes this quite plain – the Spirit of God dwells in, lives within all those who belong to Christ.

And by His presence, the Holy Spirit assures us that this life is not all there is. Verse 11 gives us the wonderful promise that if the Holy Spirit dwells within us now, we can be sure that He will one day raise our bodies from the dead just as Christ has risen from the grave.

But the Holy Spirit also makes all the difference in our lives here and now. Verse 5 tells us that those who are filled with the Holy Spirit will naturally come to set our minds more and more on spiritual things, as we find God and His truth to be more interesting and more attractive than anything else. Verse 10 reminds us that those who trust in Christ have died to the power of sin, but also that we have the new life of the Spirit within us. It is the power of the Holy Spirit who enables us to overcome the remnants of sin in our lives, to win the victory in the struggle Paul describes so vividly at the end of chapter 7.

So, what’s on your mind today? Why not put aside the temporary things of the flesh that can only lead to fear and death? Why not set your mind on the things of the Spirit? For whatever the world may say, that’s the only true way to life and peace.

Romans 8:1-17 (ESV)

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.
8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
17 and if children, then heirs– heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.