Walk In The Spirit Series

We can put walking in the Spirit of God in a Shakespearian way.

To Be (spiritually alive)

Or

Not to be (spiritually alive)

That is the question. And what better way to propose an answer to that question with the chapter from Romans that tells us about the Spirit filled life. Romans Chapter 8 is the outstanding chapter about our walk by the Spirit of God. This chapter has twenty references to the Holy Spirit in the chapter and half of them are concentrated in these verses Romans 8:1-11.

God seeks for carnal Christians who live by the flesh to be transformed into victorious believers who walk according to the Spirit. Salvation is just the starting point of beginning our walk with Christ. We have begun a journey for the Lord when we come to faith in Christ.

After we make a profession of faith in Christ and begin our walk with the Lord, we can’t even take the first step in our own strength. We know that it is not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord, but we set out on our walk with the Lord by sight. We need Romans 8 to keep us walking by faith. The right way to walk with God is by the Spirit of God.

There is for you if you walk in the fulness of the Holy Spirit an abounding triumph. Wouldn’t that be wonderful for you, if you were to describe your own Christian life as abounding triumph.

We are set free in Christ

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:1-4)

We have been set free! Our chains fell off. Becoming a Christian means a deliverance from bondage. It means that there is now no condemnation for us in Christ. That is part of the good news of the gospel. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty.

When we come to faith in Christ our names are written in the book of life they can never be erased. Our eternal life has begun. Jesus set the captives free by becoming a sin offering. It is because of what Jesus has done that when you become a Christian. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Jesus set the captives free. He set us free from sin. From the time we have been set free onward we are to walk by the Spirit. Another way to say this is to live by the Spirit. Once we have new life in Christ, we have one of two paths to walk.

We are not talking about the broad road that leads to destruction and the narrow road of faith in Christ and being born again. The two roads we are looking at in Romans 8 are the road of living our lives according to the sinful nature or living according to the Spirit of God.

We must have divine empowering to be relevant as a Christian. That is the walk that tells others you are a Christian. That is the walk that gives the believer in Christ victory and power. For the believer who realizes they are walking according to the flesh that realization comes upon them with great heaviness. Finding yourself walking according to the flesh is a call to repentance and submitting to the will of Jesus Christ.

We walk according to the flesh when our thoughts are dominated by thoughts that are contrary to the nature of God. Living according to our sinful desires is like living in a dry and dusty desert and dying of thirst when the springs of water are readily available and fully satisfying.

Tragically we sometimes live like this desert experience in a state of spiritual death. We may be earnest and hardworking, but still if it is in the flesh, it will accomplish nothing for God. It does not mean we are not going to heaven because we live like this, not if we have genuinely put our faith in Jesus Christ and asked God that his death on the cross be the payment for our sin.

Law was powerless to do what walking in the Spirit will do for you. The law could never deliver us from the bondage of sin. It was like putting a bandage on a wound that needs a deep healing. We are to embrace what the Spirit does.