Walk in the Spirit

(2Corinthians 10:3) “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh…”

If only we understood the urgency Paul refers to when penning this statement;

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh (for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds), casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ;” helping us to understand that life isn’t only about what we see, taste and handle, but rather about what Christ achieved on Calvary. By the grace of God I can say that I am convinced that whenever we try to find justification by what we do in the flesh, we have fallen prey to the enemy and his cunning devises. We have then taken our eyes off our Saviour and His accomplishments as we then place self justification on what we have done instead of what He has done. Do not get me wrong, James is very clear that faith without works is dead. Our faith must produce works; however we must not generate works from a platform of legalism but rather from a platform of grace as we fall more in love with our Saviour. We must not strive so that everything we do becomes a burden; it actually ends up crushing us and hinders our ability to bear fruit in the Spirit. I know this can get tricky to understand with clarity and we can often make the mistake of having begun in the spirit to now find justification through the flesh. Remember the Pharisees and how they learnt to manipulate the law so that they could live in the flesh with their hearts far from God and appear to be doing the right things before man, the Lord referred to them as hypocrites. (Matthew 23:13) “But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because ye shut the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye enter not in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering in to enter.” Pride will always be resisted by God.

Remember you stand or fall before God! Do not think because you find justification from men that you will be accepted by God. Only those who acknowledge the work of the cross and the Lord Jesus’ sacrifice will ultimately be justified by Him.

I am convinced that Paul understood the secret to walking in the spirit, it is there for all to see and I am also starting to understand the simplicity of it. We are multifaceted being and Satan uses our complexes against us. How, you may ask? He get us so caught up with life and all that goes with it, he makes us focus on our problems so that they become issues in our lives and when a concern has fully matured it will bring forth death. However when I remember what Christ accomplished on Calvary I then understand that…

(Romans 8:38-39) “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Everything pivots on Jesus Christ our Lord, the devil understands this and will use our circumstances to get us to take our eyes off the Lord Jesus and on to our problems. This is where we so often fall prey to his exploits, if we knew what time the thief would break in and steel would we not make provision to catch him or keep him out, we surely would! If we now understand how we so often return to the weak and beggarly element in our lives and take our eyes off our beloved Saviour, then maybe we must approach life from a different direction. God the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth and He does this by using the Word of God, the bible!

Why do you think Paul with all his accolades in the flesh chose to disregard all of them as he boldly declares that everything else in live besides the Lord Jesus and His death counts for very little. (1Corinthians 2:2) “For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”

What it means to walk in the spirit as opposed to walking in the flesh is rather a simple application, so effortless in fact that we often miss it! WE MUST TAKE OUR EYES OF OURSELVES AND LOOK AT THE LORD JESUS! Fall in love with Him, think about what He achieved while on the earth, thing about all He had to go through and remember that He did it for you and me. What a great Saviour, He who has begun a good work in you will see it through unto the end. Do you believe this, I do and I am thankful that my name has been called, are you?

I will leave you with a chorus we use to sing when I was newly saved and it is remarkably apt; “turn your eyes upon Jesus and the things of the world will grow strangely dim.” Remember this and walk in the spirit making melody in your heart and praising God!

Signing off

Tyrone