Daily Word

You could say that this amazing Bible verse is a summary of Paul’s entire teaching in Galatians about life in the Spirit.

Unfortunately, many translations weaken the important truth here.

Read this version: “I say to you: walk in the Spirit at all times, and you will (absolutely not) give in to the desires of the flesh (satisfy the focused longing and passionate desire of fallen man).”

But there is a long journey from being “born of the Spirit” to constantly “walking in the Spirit.”

When you are born of the Spirit, you receive the Spirit, have the Spirit, but the Spirit does not yet have you.

You first need to be “filled with the Spirit” or as the Bible also says, be “baptized in the Spirit.”

How do you become that?

After being emptied!

Of what then?

First of all, the rubbish from the old life: every wrong influence and imprint that you carry with you in your backpack from your childhood (your ancestors and your mother's womb) and onwards until now.

It requires bottomless honesty – not to hide and withhold anything, no matter how shameful it may feel.

The best thing is to “cough it up” bit for bit in front of a spiritually mature person, who can set you free from it all in the name of Jesus.

Then you have to be emptied of everything you are in yourself.

This is even tougher!

To be emptied of all pride, self-sufficiency, self-confidence, your own ambitions (good and bad), dreams and desires – and most difficult of all: the stubborn grip on your own life.

What comes next?

Learning to “walk by the Spirit” – be driven by the Spirit.

What does that require?

That the Spirit of God may invade your entire life and place everything under the Lordship of Jesus: your will, your thoughts and feelings, in other words everything that belongs to your human soul.

Then comes something equally important: that the Spirit may invade your body, your physical life, to characterize everything you are and do in your everyday life.

Not the least, this requires that the Holy Spirit may invade and reprogram your nervous system, since everything you do is determined and controlled by it.

Are you walking in the Spirit – or are you still driven by the “flesh”?