How Do You Walk in the Spirit?

Before you start todays devotional, ask the Lord to use it to grow you up in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

It gets you out of prison—whatever else you say about Christianity, be sure you don’t miss this. Jesus rescued you from prison. He paid your penalty to set you free to live a free life. Don’t let anyone put you back in there again. That’s what was happening to the Galatians.

What else did Jesus rescue you from?

• . . . from this evil world (1:4). You don’t have to serve it.
• . . . from the Evil One. Before Jesus saved you, you were a victim to demons’ beck and call. You followed them. No more.
• . . . from a frustrated Christian life (2:20). Now you are free to obey, free to live without guilt, without fear, without an accusing conscience.
• . . . from the impossible demands of legalism and the Law (3:13).
• . . . from the chains of the desires of the flesh. What you want has changed.
• . . . and because you are free, you can go boldly to the Lord in prayer (Hebrews 4:16).

Jesus rescued us, but how do we live free? Deep down inside you is a tug of war, a civil war between your two natures—the flesh and the Spirit battle each other. You’ll never face a day when you don’t have a battle, a raging fight that you’ll never grow out of. If you are a Christian, you are a human battleground. But Jesus has given you a way through this struggle. He’s given you His Spirit to help you. Before we get to the details of what that life looks like, let’s be clear about what the works of the flesh are.

The list in Galatians 5:19-21 is not exhaustive, but there’s enough ugliness there to turn your stomach. Are the sins you struggle with consistently there? These works of the flesh are what you do. But the Spirit of God produces fruit in your life that shapes who you are.

The secret of fruit-bearing is yielding to the Holy Spirit who lives in you. He’ll produce the fruit of His Spirit in you when you place yourself at His disposal. When you do, these character traits will become more visible in your life: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Are these increasing in your life? No one is judging you, but it’s good to look at the kind of fruit your life is producing.

This is the key to it all: “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (v. 25).

This word for “walk” just means “to learn how to walk." Just as we learned to walk physically by trial and error, so are we to begin to walk by the Spirit.

It’s a learning process. Walking is putting one foot in front of the other. Sometimes you walk tall; sometimes, you fall down. We learn to walk in the Spirit the same way—by trial and error. You get up again. You keep trying.

Do you want to walk in the Spirit? Why not start now? Every day you’ll get better at it. You’ll cultivate the habit of thinking on the flesh as that which is crucified, and you’ll leave it nailed there. And you walk in the power of the Holy Spirit who regularly and faithfully is there to pull off His life through you.

The Christian life is not a balloon ascending into the clouds. Instead, it is a daily walk, putting one foot ahead of the other in dependence on the Holy Spirit.

1. Why do you think God didn’t take away our desire to sin when He gave believers eternal life?

2. The fruits of the Spirit are things that the Holy Spirit produces in our lives, but it is up to us to cooperate and practice those things. Pick one of the fruits of the Spirit. What are some ways you can practice living that fruit?

3. Our “walk” is the things that we do, our habits. Are you walking with the Spirit or walking in your flesh?

Additional Resources

Listen to Dr. J. Vernon McGee's complete audio teachings of Galatians 5:16-21 and Galatians 5:22-26.