The Spirit

I was blessed to go to a seminary class all day yesterday so I figured I share what I discovered:

       As Christians, we're ofter so pressed to defend the deity of christ that we forget the humanity of Christ. Christ stripped Himself of all the power of His deity in coming to earth. Though he could have called upon his deity at any second to help him perform miracles, resist temptation, say the right thing, he did not do so once. For the entirety of his life he depended absolutely on the Spirit. Therefore though Christ was sinless, he is still the perfect new covenant person because the life he lived was entirely human.
       On a side note, the depth of Christ's humility is astounding. Just think, the God of the entire universe, becoming a baby. A baby who has to be fed, wear dipers, succumb to every bodily function, limit his infinite mind..Its ridiculous. We cannot possibly wrap our minds around the difficulty of the life lived by Christ, in how entirely he stripped himself to truly be one of us, to separate himself from the Father with whom he was in a relationship so deep and poignant and right that we cannot even picture it.
       So Christ, who has given up all godliness, lived his life dependent on the Spirit for everything. He studied the Scriptures endlessly because he came as we do, not knowing them. He prayed fervently to God because He had to learn the fathers will, just as we do. He learned obedience and was made perfect from the things He suffered. And from this we draw the uncomfortable conclusion that God does want us also to suffer that we may learn obedience and made perfect. That is far more important to God than our comfort in this life. And if you want a real life example of that visit Libby Ryder's blog is testifies to  how cancer is a gift not a curse.
 And the Spirit is below Christ in the sense that the mission of the Spirit is to exult Christ. The role of the Spirit in our lives is to exult Christ and make him known. The Spirit guides us in seeing Christ, and the more we see him, the more we come to fiercely love who he is, we are made like Him. It is a process of gradual sanctification that will continue from the day the Spirit enters us to the day we see Christ. Is is in the Spirit that we come to delight in our duty to obey Christ and the law is literally made perfect in us as it is written on our hearts.

Well, there's a lot more but thats probably good for now :)