Words of the apostle Paul: And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. Romans 8:9

In his epistle to the Romans, the apostle Paul developed some very important spiritual concepts for all Christians, such as how, through the sacrament of baptism, Christians can identify with the Lord. Because baptism can be understood as a Passover, that is, a passage from death to the true spiritual life of man; just as the Lord died and rose again, Christians must die to error, that is, sin, and live again to the gift of eternal life.
This is why the apostle Paul wrote these words in his letter to the Romans: "When he died, he died once and for all to sin's power. But now he lives, and he lives for God. So consider yourselves dead to sin's power but living for God in the power Christ Jesus gives you" Romans 6:10-11.
And this spiritual change that Paul testified to with his life, because the apostle to the Gentiles before his baptism was a persecutor of Christians, is a fundamental change in the Christian faith, because the desires of the flesh, driven by concupiscence, and the desires of the spirit, oppose and fight each other in the soul of man.
The desire for happiness is a deceptive desire in man, and whoever is led by it cannot enter into the Kingdom of God, the realm or dominion of the divine perfections. To accept the baptism and live according to the Spirit is to reject this kind of desire, which is eminently worldly, because whoever lives according to the desires of the Spirit seeks to be like Christ every day of his life. Living according to the spirit in practical terms, according to the teachings of Jesus, means continually improving, because the kingdom of God is gradual and progressive; this is what communion with Christ consists of, and not seeking happiness, because happiness is not an objective, it is actually a result, a consequence, of man's excellence.
This is why Paul referred to that desire for wisdom, for that devotion to the most perfect thing that puts Christians in contact with that superior spirit which is the spirit of Jesus. This is why the apostle Paul warned the Christians of the Church of Rome that they should not return to their former life, the life according to the flesh, because those who do this live without the spirit of Christ, and with these words, he warned them about this fact: "And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ" Romans 8:9.
Belonging to Christ ultimately means seeking the most excellent gift to which man can aspire, and that gift is the contemplative life itself, and this is the fulfillment of hope, which is the gift that accompanies faith from baptism.

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