Walk in the Spirit

2014-10-20

“This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16)

Did you ever consider that God lives within us? I have always known this on an academic level. All believers have the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9), and have known the deity of the Holy Spirit. However, the Holy Spirit really is God, not an ethereal force, and we have him within us. This should trouble us and humble us deeply, if we do not walk in the Spirit. Let us talk about this in a minute.

We know the objective truth of Jesus Christ dying on the cross and shedding his blood for our sins. Being the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, he could effectively pay for every sin that every person ever created ever committed. For an example we read in Romans 5:9: “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.”

This is not all. We know the objective truth that we have died with Jesus Christ, and this has rendered our “old man” inoperative. Paul writes, “I am crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20). Romans 6:3 says, “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?” Again, Romans 6:6, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.”

Moreover, we know the objective truth that we were raised with Christ, and we are new creations. Romans 6:5 says, “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” Galatians 2:20 continues from above, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”

We also know the objective truth that our life can be found in Christ alone. Colossians 3:3 reads, “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”

But as we learn to trust in the comprehensiveness of Christ crucified and risen again as our justification, sanctification, and glorification, we learn to trust that we must rest from our work, and trust God the Holy Spirit to make these objective truths experiential reality in our daily lives. This is walking in the Spirit. Philippians 2:13 tells us, “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”

Trust God not only with the major problems and trials of life; trust him with the daily routine and the mundane.