Reformed Doctrine Daily Devotions

 ¹⁸  “But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled.

 ¹⁹  “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord;

 ²⁰  and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you,

 ²¹  whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.

 ²²  “Moses said, ‘THE LORD GOD WILL RAISE UP FOR YOU A PROPHET LIKE ME FROM YOUR BRETHREN; TO HIM YOU SHALL GIVE HEED to everything He says to you.

 ²³  ‘And it will be that every soul that does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.’

 ²⁴  “And likewise, all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and his successors onward, also announced these days.

 ²⁵  “It is you who are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘AND IN YOUR SEED ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH SHALL BE BLESSED.’

 ²⁶  “For you first, God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.”  Acts 3:17-26.

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We are commanded to repent and turn away from our wickedness, but we cannot do it on our own.  We needed to be granted repentance.  We need Jesus to turn us around from our wicked ways.

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.

Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are:  immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery,  enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”  Galatians 5:16-23.

The solution is not to just know the Law better and try harder.  We need the Spirit.

“For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did:  sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God;  for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.  But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.

If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.

But 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.

So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh–for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”  Romans 8:3-13.