A COMFORTABLE, ENJOYABLE DEATH-STYLE

A lifestyle focused on comfort, entertainment, and enjoyment leads to complacency, that is, a selfishness because of which we don't care that much about other people's lives and salvation (see Am 6:4-6).

Complacency is only one of the side effects of a pleasure-seeking lifestyle. A self-centered lifestyle gradually causes a spiritual blindness and deafness through which we become so hardened that even someone risen from the dead would not be able to touch our hearts (Lk 16:31).

Because we naturally want a lifestyle that is as comfortable as possible, we are doomed to be complacent and hardhearted unless we:

• receive a new nature (see Jn 3:3), and
• live in that new nature.

The Holy Spirit is our Hope, for He will strongly oppose the desires of our flesh, that is, our fallen, selfish nature (Gal 5:17). Through His word, the Holy Spirit will crucify our "flesh with its passions and desires" (Gal 5:24) and give us a new nature and a new birth (Jn 3:5; see also 1 Pt 1:23). The Holy Spirit gives the possibility and the power of living the Christian life and being freed from the death and damnation of our self-centered lifestyle. Come, Holy Spirit!