Christian existence in the Spirit of God, Paul says in Romans 8:12-17, is learning to anticipate death by dying to the “flesh” in the here and now. Here’s a fine quotation from Tom Wright:
“but those who are led by the Spirit will find that the Spirit’s inner agency enables them, if they will, to say ‘no’ to the practices that carry the smell of death with them” (592).
The promise of 8:13 is set up in a conditional sentence: “if you put to death… by the Spirit of course … the misdeeds of the body/flesh, you will live.” Why? Children of God (I’d translate it with some kind of gender neutrality) are “led by the Spirit of God.”