Monday 19 May 2008

Walk in the Spirit



I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
- Galatians 5v16

Certain things just don’t mix. Oil and water for example don’t mix (okay, I am no scientist, so maybe there is a way to mix them), I am sure there are other things that don’t mix, but I can’t think of them this morning, but hopefully we all get the point.

Paul points out in a couple of verses here that you simply can’t mix the flesh and the Spirit. There are mutually exclusive. A Christian cannot walk in the flesh and the Spirit at the same time. Over and over again throughout each and every day we stand at a fork in the road. One road means following the flesh, the other means following the Spirit.

How do we avoid the trap of fulfilling the lust of the flesh? We all face the same battle. The flesh rears its ugly head over and over again saying, “Follow me, you know you want to, you know you like it.” If we are not walking in the Spirit, down His road, then we are going to rush headlong into obeying the flesh. If we want to deny the flesh we have to walk in the Spirit.

The problem is that most of us want it both ways. We want to walk in the Spirit with the chance to occasionally indulge the flesh. We just can’t seem to totally let go of the flesh.

The words are clear enough in this verse – “Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.” If we are fulfilling the lust of the flesh, what does that mean? Does it not mean that we are not walking in the Spirit?

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