Let
us start our reading from verse 8 of
Romans chapter 8: “Brothers and sisters: Those
who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are
not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the
spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you.
Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not
belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although
the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive
because of righteousness. If the Spirit of the one
who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the
one who raised Christ from the dead will give life
to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit dwelling
in you.”
I would like to begin with these questions: What
makes us Children of God? How come we are Christians
(Christlike)? There must be something about us
that give us the Christian identity. Maybe because
we go to church every Sunday. Or we belong to some
societies in Church. Or is it because we have the
Spirit of God? As a matter of fact, for one to
call himself a child of God or a Christian, he
must think or believe that his deeds are pleasing
to God.
St Paul tells the Romans that those who live by
their natural inclinations can never please God.
This is serious talk. This question it raises will
include wether we can identify what moves us as
Christians. Is it the Spirit of God or those natural
inclinations? When we look at our world today,
it is not too different from that of the
people of Rome that Paul addressed several centuries
ago. In fact, this generation has a lot in common
with Paul’s generation and that makes his
message equally and absolutely relevant for us
today. These days (the high-tech age) a lot of
people are driven and motivated almost exclusively
by what the senses provide. Because of this reality,
you now discover that “anything goes”.
And because ‘anything goes’, ‘many
things go’, and consequently “everything
goes”. Good family values are eroded, right
sense of morality is wiped out, virtue is strangled
and the human conscience is completely subdued
by an irrational and inhuman mind.
A kind of monster you may say. This monster stars
in so many unbelievable stories around the world
that leaves us all breathless. Some have compared
some of these stories we hear with what happened
before Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. People
have rejected the Spirit of God and have not allowed
it to work in their lives. About a week ago, the
whole world woke up to the news that a certain
73-year-old man in Austria confessed to imprisoning
his daughter in a windowless cellar for 24 years
and fathering her seven children. What a story!
His daughter became an instrument of countless
abuses and the highest degree of incest.
This man concealed this whole horror (if you like
terror) so much that even his wife was not aware
of it. My conclusion about this story: This man
is Satan. Only the devil can unleash this kind
of terror. But let us not wonder so much about
this story and look inwards. Many of our homes
are suffering similar kinds of violence if we look
more closely. Many Catholics have involved themselves
in many ungodly acts and deceive many people with
the pretense of knowing God. For such, the Holy
Spirit we are talking about is far. Many practice
double allegiance to God in Church and to something
else somewhere. Let us face it; there are so many
so-called Catholics in secret cults here and there
where they think they can gain power, money and
fame. They fail to realize that what they are grabbing
is nothing but emptiness. They still do not have
life in them and they die. My dear people of God,
it is only the Spirit of God that gives life.
Our Lord sends us the same message he sent through
John to the Church in Laodecea in Rev 3:15-16: “I
know your activities: how you are neither cold
nor hot. I wish you were one or the other, but
since you are neither hot or cold, but only lukewarm,
I will spit you out of my mouth.” Many Catholics
are lukewarm. It is problem that can be solved
only by the revival of the Holy Spirit in you. “Lukewarmness” strips
us of the peace and joy we find in God, and darkens
our spiritual life with a sense of sadness, dejection,
and emptiness.
You are neither cold nor hot. You are just there.
The effects are poisonous. You compromise your
faith and believe you can handle it alone and many
a times you crash. It is sad to see the predicament
of the youth today. Young good and innocent girls
in their undergraduate years in school are constantly
harassed by lecturers everyday in our campuses.
It is sad that some of these men who do this turnout
to be Catholics. The question will now be: what
is the relationship of this attitude with Holy
Spirit? Many incredible things happen in the lives
of many who pose as the good Christians/Catholics.
In families a lot things go unattended. I once
was reprimanding a woman for her ‘I don’t
care’ attitude when I heard that her sixteen
year old daughter had a baby outside marriage.
And her response was : “ah Father you no
go believe me when I tell u say that pickin wen
e bon dey stubborn well-well, I spend at least
N32,000 and the de pickin no gree abort.” That
was the stunning response of a mother who I saw
at least every Sunday in Church. There are many
more like that everywhere.
The examples can go on and on. What we are saying
here is that lukewarmness eats deep, so deep that
one becomes comfortable in sin. Only the Holy Spirit
can liberate you because it brings life. Without
the Holy Spirit what remains is just flesh: moving
corpses. The Holy Spirit fills us with life.
He is the source of life, both spiritual and physical.
Remember that the Greek and Hebrew words for Spirit
can be used to mean wind, breath, or life. To have
breath is to have life. To have the breath of God
is to have the life of God within you. The Holy
Spirit is the spirit of life.
