Coming Alive to the Holy Spirit Within

Summary

Living Influence with Bill Thrall and Scott Boyd
Episode: Coming Alive to the Holy Spirit Within
Date: December 18, 2025

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Overview

In this episode, Bill Thrall and Scott Boyd deeply explore what it means to move from "living in the flesh" to "becoming alive in the Holy Spirit." They focus on how our self-understanding, rooted in God's truth about us, is crucial both to overcoming struggles with sin and to living with genuine hope and influence. Drawing on Romans 7, their extensive ministry experience, and real-life applications, Bill and Scott challenge the "sin management" mindset prevalent in much of Christian culture, offering in its place a foundation built on grace, trust, and spiritual identity.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Wrestling with Romans 7 and the Christian Reality

• Timestamps: 00:36–03:33
  • Scott opens by reading Romans 7:13–25 (00:36).
  • The hosts discuss the internal conflict Paul describes—flesh versus inner being/righteousness.
  • Scott: “To me it's actually talking about the Christian condition. And I actually find it beautiful that Paul talks about two elements that are at work within us … our flesh and our inner being.” (02:30)

2. The Power of Sin vs. the Power of the Spirit

• Timestamps: 03:34–07:46
  • Bill unpacks the reality that Christians have the Holy Spirit dwelling within but still contend with the flesh and sin.
  • Bill: “There’s nothing in our human creation that can cause us to deal with the power of sin that is in our flesh.” (03:49)
  • The hosts break down how “sin management theology” keeps believers focused on their failures instead of their spiritual reality.

3. The Futility of Working Harder on Sin

• Timestamps: 07:46–11:06
  • Bill describes decades of pastoral experience helping people who are stuck trying to “fix” themselves.
  • Bill’s fundamental advice: “Working on your issue will never resolve your issue.” (08:31)
  • He stresses that merely trying harder leads to frustration and that the foundation for resolving sin must change.

4. Changing the Foundation: Identity in Christ

• Timestamps: 11:06–14:53
  • The key to transformation is realizing your identity: “What if foundational to who I am, I am made holy and righteous in his image?” (10:39)
  • Through shifting the focus away from the issue and onto who they are in Christ, people “begin to experience grace... one of the great byproducts of grace is hope.” (11:33, 11:47)
  • Scott underscores the significance of separating identity from sin: “You are not the issue... Sin management makes you the issue.” (12:38, 12:50)
  • Bill: “Grace always causes me to deal with my reality, or it isn’t grace. Only grace can deal with my reality.” (09:56)

5. Trust: The Simplicity at the Heart of the Gospel

• Timestamps: 13:15–16:27
  • The difficulty many have with “just believing” or trusting God’s truth.
  • Bill: “Do you really believe that Christ is in you?” (13:43) and “[Grace is] the process of applying truth to our reality.” (14:37)
  • Scott compares this to golf coaching—knowing what’s true but needing to trust and apply it for it to become real (14:53).

6. The Holy Spirit’s Role: Moving from Effort to Trust

• Timestamps: 16:27–18:52
  • Bill retells a counseling story emphasizing that the foundational question isn’t how to trust, but whom to trust.
  • “[Romans] chapter 8 says, if by the Spirit you put in the place of death the deeds of the flesh... Stop working on sinning less. Stop working on trying to master your flesh. Start trusting the Holy Spirit that is in you.” (17:06, 17:27)
  • The answer to “Who will deliver me?” is “Christ in me... the Holy Spirit in me.” (18:38–18:43)

7. Mature Faith: Letting God Define Identity

• Timestamps: 18:52–19:43
  • Maturity means letting God’s truth permeate every part of you—not letting the flesh define you.
  • “When my flesh no longer defines me, how am I defined? I'm defined by God.” (19:16, 19:19)
  • When free from self-focus and hiding, the flesh comes into the light, allowing true resolution (19:32).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Bill Thrall [08:31]:
  “Working on your issue will never resolve your issue.”
• Scott Boyd [12:50]:
  “Sin management always keeps me preoccupied with me and what I've done and ... what you're doing to me.”
• Bill Thrall [10:39]:
  “What if foundational to who I am, I am made holy and righteous in his image.”
• Bill Thrall [13:32]:
  “You mean all I would have to do is believe? Ah, yeah. Now we're back to the Christian faith. Yeah. All I would have to do is what? Trust.”
• Bill Thrall [17:27]:
  “Stop working on sinning less. Stop working on trying to master your flesh. Start trusting the Holy Spirit that is in you... In my flesh I have sin that is greater than me, but in my new reality, I have the Holy Spirit that is greater than my flesh.”
• Scott Boyd [19:19]:
  “I'm defined by God. And when I'm defined by God and not my flesh, I don't have to hide my flesh.”
• Bill Thrall [09:56]:
  “Grace always causes me to deal with my reality, or it isn’t grace. Only grace can deal with my reality.”

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Important Timestamps

• Romans 7 Foundation: 00:36–03:33
• Power of Sin vs. Spirit: 03:33–07:46
• Pastoral Experience and Sin Management: 07:46–11:06
• Identity and Hope: 11:06–14:53
• Trust as the Core Issue: 13:15–16:27
• Letting the Holy Spirit Lead: 16:27–18:52
• True Maturity and Resolution: 18:52–19:43

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Conclusion

Bill and Scott invite listeners to stop striving to fix themselves through self-effort and to anchor their lives in the reality of being indwelt by the Holy Spirit. The episode’s central message is clear: Lasting change, hope, and influence are found not in managing sin but in trusting the Spirit within, resting in a new identity defined by God’s grace—not our flesh.

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This summary brings forward all major themes, moments, and practical wisdom discussed, giving non-listeners a thorough sense of the episode’s richness and tone.

Transcript

[A]

If you like our content, we have an exclusive seminar for business leaders March 11th to the 13th. Check it out on livinginfluenceleadership.com Living in the Flesh to Becoming Alive in the Holy Spirit welcome to this week's Living Influence. I'm your host, Scott Boyd, along with Bill Frall. And that's our topic today. How do we make this transition from living in our flesh to becoming alive in the Holy Spirit? Amen. So I'm going to start with the Scripture. Romans 7:13 did that which is good then bring me to death or bring death to me? By no means. It was sin producing death in me through what is good in order that sin might be shown to be sin and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual. But I am of the flesh sold under sin, for I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law.

[B]

That it is good.

[A]

So now it's no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is my flesh in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it's no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inner being. But I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. That's a really intriguing scripture.

[B]

Yes, it is.

[A]

And lots of people have like interpreted as this, Paul talking before he got saved or not. But to me it's actually talking about the Christian condition. And I actually find it beautiful that Paul talks about two elements that are at work within us and one is our flesh and one is our inner being. And he talks about our inner being as being righteous, as being different. So where do you take that?

[B]

Yeah, well, you gave it a great start. Thank you. Our view of Scriptures has a profound effect in the way we look at that chapter. Yeah, it really does.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I think that Paul is addressing, as you just said, Paul's addressing the reality of his condition as long as he's alive. And that is he is a Christian. And as a Christian, he now has a new reality in his inner being. In his inner being.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And also he recognizes that there is a power present in his flesh. And let's talk about that for just a minute. A power present in his flesh called sin.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That he was never created to deal with. There's nothing, nothing in our human creation that can cause us to deal with the power of sin that is in our flesh. So one of these, we call them the miracles of Calvary. But one of these profound miracles of Calvary is that in this new reality of who I am, the Spirit of God dwells in me. And Paul's recognizing this, he ends with, oh, wretched man that I am who. And let's just get this part clear. Oh, wretched man that I am who is never me. Just never me. The who is never me. Now, unfortunately, there is a whole theology, we've called it the sin management theology, that wants to continue to keep the Christian in the mode of being responsible for their sin and the sin that is in their flesh. And they have all these creative ways of dealing with the flesh.

[A]

Yeah. I've had people argue with me, like, but we have. I believe we have agency. So because we have agency, we have responsibility. And so because we're responsible, we should. We should focus on not sinning, on doing the right thing, on not doing.

[B]

The wrong thing, or putting our bodies and whipping our bodies, or we should do anything we can to reduce the power of this flesh. And we're actually, Scott, totally helpless. I think it's important for us to, just as Christians, to know that there is present in our flesh a power that is greater than we are. But there is, in my new reality, a power that is greater than the power of sin in my flesh right now. If I have no ability to deal with the power of sin on my.

[A]

Own.

[B]

Well, how would I then ever answer the who, who, who, who? And so Paul. Paul starts this whole thing by just being unbelievably vulnerable as to his own condition.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But he comes back to. To his own awareness. He's the guy who wrote most of the New Testament, by the way, teaching about grace and identity. But he's using his passage to bring us back to that place where we have an answer for the who.

[A]

If people don't know this. Bill has spent 25 years pastoring members of his church and then another 30 years pastoring leaders. Yeah, like 55 years. Yeah. And so you have people coming to you. And I know because I get to hear stories all the time. And we were fishing. I was fishing with Bill's daughter, and I was asking his daughter if she would play a game with me. And the game was this. How many words does it take you to know what story Bill's going to tell you? Because Bill has a lot of stories. I do, but she also. But what that is, is that's a lot of experience in working with people. People that have come to you with this, oh, wretched man that I am exasperation of, like, can you help me?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And so I just like to pause and have you talk about when they would come, and here's their issue, and what do you do with that? Where do you take them? I know you have calculated moves like, this is how we go about this.

[B]

Yeah, I do. What happens is for a variety of reasons, quite honestly, Scott, and sometimes, tragically, their own theology, they come to me with a list of things that they've done or have been done to them, and they're exasperated because they've done everything. Quote, they know how to bring resolution to what they've done or what's been done to them. And they discover that it's frustrating. They don't know what to do. And so it's even. Actually, some of them even come to me to ask me, is there a better way I can do this?

[A]

I just don't know the secret.

[B]

I don't know the secret of how I can do this. Teach me how I can do it.

[A]

And.

[B]

And so I. One of my common statements are these words, working on your issue will never resolve your issue.

[A]

And you, like, believe that with all your heart?

[B]

I believe that with all my heart.

[A]

And you know that from 55 years of working on this.

[B]

And I know that from Scripture. And I. And from the Scripture, and I know that from the truth of this reality. Working on my sin will never resolve my sin. I've got to learn something. The foundation from which I'm working on my sin has to change or I'll never have resolution to my sin. So here's the foundation. If I see myself as a sinner, then I have an obligation to do something about the fact I'm sinning and I'm called a Christian. But what if my foundation changed what if the reason I keep repeating the same dynamic, because I have flesh and there is sin in my flesh? What if I learned to do something, and that is, how do I learn to trust a foundation laid in me by Christ as the foundation from which my sin can be dealt with? That's what I do. I do that with lots of leaders. And by the way, some of them are pastors because so often theologically, we disassociate our own lives from the theology we teach. But we have this saying. We love this saying. Grace always causes me to deal with my reality, or it isn't grace. Only grace can deal with my reality. Now, having said that, in answer to your question, as we think about this power of our flesh, is there a way for me as a Christian to understand that the way I view me is critical to the resolution of what is true about me? What if I actually believed that the person of Jesus Christ was alive in me? Foundation to who I am. What if foundational to who I am? I am made holy and righteous in his image.

[A]

And so you see, this person comes to you and they meet with you.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And they have this issue.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And you're suggesting to them, okay, let's put this issue here. Yeah.

[B]

I say to them, we're never going to ignore the issue, but we're going to trust God to change the foundation from which we deal with it.

[A]

What happens in them is they begin to trust that Jesus is in their heart. What do you see happen?

[B]

Thank you. And what's happening then is they begin to experience grace. Grace. Now, one of the great, great, quote, byproducts of grace is hope.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And. And they're desperate. Remember you, You. You introduced them to. To me. They come to me and they're desperate.

[A]

They're desperate, otherwise they wouldn't be coming. Yeah.

[B]

So desperate people have no hope.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But what if. What if they could begin to see that the foundation of who they are, as today's podcast is telling I said, the Holy Spirit is alive in us. What if they could begin to see that and they begin to get in touch with who God says they are? I can tell you, they begin to experience hope.

[A]

Do you think that begins to happen because they come in with this issue and you go, okay, we're not going to ignore this, but we're going to put it here. Now, let me talk about you.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

And there's this, like. There's this separation of like, you are not the issue.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

And the sin management makes you the issue.

[B]

Sin management always keeps Me, preoccupied with me and what I've done and what I'm doing and what you've done and what you're doing to me.

[A]

And so when I go like, okay, here's this issue, but this issue isn't you. And so I do this. Now all of a sudden, a little sunlight hits you.

[B]

Exactly. A little holy slate.

[A]

A little Jesus, A little. And hope of the gospel, a truth hits me.

[B]

And all of a sudden I go. It sounds so simple, Bill. I've had people say that to me. You mean all I would have to do is believe? Ah, yeah. Now we're back to the Christian faith. Yeah. All I would have to do is what? Trust. It's always the foundation point.

[A]

It's like, it can't be that simple.

[B]

Exactly. Let me go back to working really, really hard, and I'll say to them, how's that going for you? Oh, I'm horrible. I can't do it. I'm dead. Good. Let's try something else. Why don't we try trusting something? And what would I trust? Well, what if you were to say this? What if you were to trust. Let yourself just dwell on this for a minute. I'll say, what if you were to trust that you are actually alive today and this stuff has not robbed you of your life, but what if you understood that your new life is the foundation for dealing with this stuff? Do you really believe that Christ is in you? I don't mind asking these questions. Do you really believe that you're alive? And they'll go, yeah, but I've never thought about it that way. And by the way, Scott, lots and lots of Christians have a lot of good theology that they've never thought about applying to their own reality. We can have a lot of good theology. It's of no value to us until we apply it to our reality. Grace is the process of applying truth to our reality.

[A]

You're making me think of my golf coach. You know, I'm hitting the ball bad, and I go to my golf coach and actually, I actually know the exact four things he's going to tell me to do. Okay, square up your stance. Okay, get. He's going to tell this. And all of a sudden I start hitting the ball. Right?

[B]

Right.

[A]

And it's like, why can't I say those four things to myself when I'm on the clique? And so it's like there's.

[B]

That's a great analogy. Because you've learned now that once you start practicing those four things, your golf score is going down. And unfortunately for me, you're starting to beat me, so I have to practice those four things better. But your point is well taken. It's like, wait a minute. Wait a minute, Scott. You're getting us pretty deep here. Do you mean to say, Bill, that we who have all of these issues are making a horrible mistake when we work on the issues because we've discovered that no amount of effort will ever change them? But what if we could learn that we as Christians have a new reality and could learn to live in that new reality? We've told this story before. A friend of ours began his sessions with us with these words. I don't trust anybody. I don't trust God. Yeah, okay.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

And I don't know what he expected me to do. I mean, like, I'm going to scream at him or something. I don't know what he expected me to do. And I said, well, let's talk about that. Because I said, you said the right word. He looks at me. What do you mean I said the right word? Trust. It's the right word. The question is not whether we know how to trust. The question is, what is the object of our trust? Who is the object of our trust? Can I understand? And you're right, Scott. I've got lots of stories, but there are lots of people that have, so to speak, sat across the table from me, and we have processed together this reality. We're a holy mess. Is there any hope to my reality? The answer is yes. Yes, we have flesh. Romans chapter 8 says, if by the Spirit, you put in the place of death the deeds of the flesh. So right there I'm saying to these people, now I'm saying to all these people, stop working on sinning glass. Stop working on trying to master your flesh. Start trusting the Holy Spirit that is in you to put what only he can do. Now, it's theology, but it's reality. In my flesh, I have sin that is greater than me, but in my new reality, I have the Holy Spirit that is greater than my flesh. What if I, as a Christian, learned. Learned to trust the Holy Spirit with the deeds of my flesh? And you know what he'll do when I do that? He'll put him in the place of death. Oh, I can't do that. I can't do that. That's why Paul screamed out the who. Who? Well, who? Christ in me.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The Holy Spirit in me.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The holiness of God in me. The righteousness of God in me. That's the new reality.

[A]

Yeah. And maturing is Beginning to have that truth invade all of us.

[B]

Amen.

[A]

Invade all of me?

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

In a way that I know.

[B]

Who.

[A]

I am in a greater way. And I know my flesh, and my flesh no longer defines me.

[B]

Amen.

[A]

And when my flesh no longer defines.

[B]

Me, how am I defined?

[A]

I'm defined by God.

[B]

Amen.

[A]

And when I'm defined by God and not my flesh, I don't have to hide my flesh. And when I don't have to hide my flesh, it comes out into the light.

[B]

Amen.

[A]

And that's where resolution happens.

[B]

Absolutely. You've said it really, really well. So that's what we're talking about in this process.

[A]

Coming alive to the Holy Spirit.

[B]

Yeah, coming. How do I then live into the reality of the Holy Spirit in me?

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. It's a good place to live, isn't it?

[B]

Amen. Amen.

[A]

Do we have more to talk on this? We do. All right. We hope to see you next week on Living Influence. We thank you for coming. You know, I'd be remiss if I didn't say, please hit that like and subscribe button. I'd also tell you that we have study guides that you can find below the links on our podcasts on the YouTube channel. And if you want to do the study guide with a group of people, with a small group, we think it's a great tool to just let you facilitate a meeting. We just love to invite you to give that a go. Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to the podcast. We're really glad that you're here. We'd love to know that you're here, and so if you could leave a comment, we would. Would appreciate that. But more importantly, if you know someone that should listen to this or hear it, we would love for you to share it with them. Thanks again.