1 Cor 6:19 (NIV) Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, Who is in you, Whom you have received from God? You are not your own.

Some Christians don't know the Holy Spirit is in them. Others don't know why He is in them. And, still others don't know what to do about the Holy Spirit's presence in them. One of the jobs of the Holy Spirit is to make our body usable for the ministry of Jesus.

Rom 8:9 (NIV) You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.

We get the Holy Spirit when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. The Holy Spirit sets us free from the control of our body and its influence on our behavior. He puts us in a place where we can get control over it. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. This is a very complex sentence. It is telling us what we are not controlled by, Who we are controlled by, and then gives us an "if" stipulation.

Let's take everything out of the sentence except for Who is in control of us. You ... are controlled ... by ... the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. Okay, go ahead and read the whole thing just to make sure I didn't change the meaning. It is saying that we, who have the Spirit of God living in us, are controlled by the Spirit. It is saying that we are not controlled by the sinful nature anymore. The word "controlled" is serving a dual role. It sounds like we are still not in control of our life. First, the sinful nature controlled us. Now, the Spirit controls us. While both of these statements are true. We are going to have to take a look at the character of the sinful nature and the character of the Holy Spirit. When the sinful nature was in control, we were made prisoners.

Rom 7:23 (NIV) but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.

Once the Spirit took control, He turned the control back to us. He only took control of our sinful nature so we could be made free. Without Him taking control of the sinful nature, we would have remained a prisoner. But, because of His character, He didn't use His control to bring us under slavery to Himself. Instead, He used the provisions of Jesus and completely set us free to choose how we want to live our life. We didn't lose control of ourselves to the Holy Spirit. We gained control of our body by the Holy Spirit.

John 8:36 (NIV) So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Freedom from Jesus brings us to a place where we have choices. With choices comes responsibilities. As a prisoner, we were forced to do what our body wanted us to do. With freedom we are now faced with the choice of indulging the sinful nature or serving one another in love.

Gal 5:13 (NIV) You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not USE your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.

We will be seeing this type of instruction throughout the whole Bible. If the Spirit maintained control bringing us completely under His power, we wouldn't have any say in whether or not we would "serve one another in love." We wouldn't have any "freedom to indulge the sinful nature." Since the Holy Spirit has placed us back into control, we become responsible for not using our "freedom to indulge the sinful nature." We are responsible to use our freedom to "serve one another in love." If we are going "serve one another in love," then we will have to yield to the life and ministry of Christ.