Have you ever gotten frustrated with understanding how to walk in the Spirit and how not to walk in the flesh? I know I have. How is it possible to always walk in the Spirit? Is there some magical way that I can stop myself from living in the flesh? Well, I went on a search for myself, and found Biblical truth about this matter. What I want to share with you is what I found: the difference between walking in the flesh and walking in the Spirit.
First of all, what does walking in the flesh look like? In Galatians 5:19-21*, Paul gives a very detailed description of the fleshly life: "And the works of the flesh are apparent, which are immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, outbreaks of selfishness, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and like things."
Hearing that list, the first thing that I think is of how dark and awful these things are. But then, when I take a second look, many of these things have been vices of mine often in my life. I don’t know about you, but I get very discouraged and angry with myself for allowing these things into my life. I feel like yelling, “O wretched person that I am!” along with Paul. But you know what? The Bible says that the desires of sin are in us but not of us. In Romans 7, Paul gives us such a rich mine of information as to where sin actually comes from: "For we know that the Torah [Law] is spiritual, but I myself am fleshly, since I have been sold as a slave under sin. For I am producing what I do not know: for I do not want this that I am doing, but I hate this, which I am doing. But if I do not want this that I do, I agree with the Torah because it is good. But now I no longer am producing this myself but the sin dwelling in me produces it....But if I myself do this that I do not want, I am no longer producing this, but the sin dwelling in me is producing it."
You see, the Flesh (sin) is actually a spirit (see Genesis 4:7) that brings with it a whole system of thinking, the way that we thought before the Holy Spirit inhabited us. We have always belonged to someone; the first time we were born, we were born slaves of sin. John Nelson Darby once said, “The life of the flesh always cleaves to Egypt”*; in the Bible, Egypt is always symbolic of slavery and of fleshly desires.
So how do we get out of this misery? As Paul says, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
But he doesn’t stop there; he finishes, “But thanks to God…through Y’shua Messiah our Lord" (Romans 7:24-25). Through our first birth, we are born into slavery to the spirit of death; but when we are born again, we become children of the Spirit. We are then empowered to walk in the Spirit. Galatians 5:22-23, a passage that most people have heard before, takes on new meaning for me now because it describes what walking in the Spirit will look like: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (ESV).
“But this life is nearly impossible,” you might say, and many times I would agree with you. But, just as the desires of the flesh have a source, so do the desires of the Spirit; Romans 8:26-27 says, "And likewise also the Spirit helps together with us in our weakness: for we do not know what we should pray according to what is needed, but the Spirit Himself intercedes in unutterable groanings: and the One Who searches our hearts knows what is in the mind of the Spirit, because He intercedes with God on behalf of the saints." When we become born again, the Spirit of God is within us, and implants His own desires in our hearts because He made them and knows them perfectly.
Well, we now know what a life in the Spirit looks like and where spiritual desires come from, but how do you actually live in the Spirit? I once heard a pastor named Andrew Farley describe it like this: Suppose that, suddenly, you were inhabited with the spirit of Lebron James, and then were called out to play a big NBA game. You now have a choice: you could go out on the court and play like you used to play (which, in my case, is not very well), or you could play with the spirit of Lebron James coming through you. In the Spirit, we have everything we need to live in the Spirit; we just have to allow our minds to be renewed.
Romans 12:2 says, "[S]top being conformed to this age, but you must from the inside continually be changed into another form, by the renovation of your mind, to prove what is the good and pleasing and perfect will of God for you."
You see, the Flesh and the Spirit both come with a way of thinking. The Flesh’s is the old way of thinking that lived with our dead spirits; the Spirit’s is the new way of thinking, the mind of Christ, that lives with our living spirits. Both the Flesh and the Spirit also have a law—the law of sin and death, and the law of love and life. When we choose the Mind of the Spirit, we will be led by that power, be under its law, and be able to walk in the Spirit.
Walking in the flesh is what many of us struggle with, but as we’ve seen, it only leads to heartache and damage for us and those around us. On the other hand, walking in the Spirit, though perhaps requiring more discipline, leads to a life so much more fulfilled and meaningful for eternity. The Biblical step of renewing our minds give us everything we really need to live as the Lord intends for us to live, the abundant life that few ever find.
*All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the One New Man Bible, translated by William J. Morford.
**http://www.cobblestoneroadministry.org/2006/FamousChristianQuotes2.html