This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
To walk in the Spirit is to live continually under the Holy Spirit's guidance and power through constant prayer, with the heart yielded to His influence in a humble, Christlike life. The flesh and the Spirit oppose each other in conflicting desires, so that living after the flesh lets fallen appetites rule and prevents doing what is right. The promise is plain that those who walk in this way will not carry out the desires of the fallen nature. Belonging to Christ means having crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts, and living out union with Him in love, joy, peace and the rest of the fruit of the Spirit. This Spirit-led walk is the one way to prevent hatred, strife and Christians devouring one another, leading instead to love, unity and bearing one another's burdens.
Meaning and Original Setting
Paul's counsel was addressed to believers in Galatia who were troubled by false teachers bringing doctrines opposed to the gospel of Christ, whose influence had spread so widely among them that direct action against them risked ruinous strife and division. Walking in the Spirit was given as the one way to prevent hatred and strife, dividing into parties, and Christians biting and devouring one another, which bring present unhappiness and future ruin.
To walk in the Spirit means continually seeking the Holy Spirit's guidance and power through constant prayer, living under His direction in a humble, Christlike life with the heart yielded to His influence. It means living in the Spirit in a hallowed atmosphere with the mind attracted to heaven and heavenly things. Not resisting the Spirit in His office work allows the soul temple to be cleansed daily and sanctified for His indwelling, which honors the preciousness of every soul and avoids laying any cause of stumbling in the way.
Walking in the Spirit takes much grace and determined, earnest effort with resolve, thought and willpower to represent Christ in character and to make spiritual progress and walk in the light as children of light. It is the same as walking uprightly and in the way of the Lord, by faith, in the truth, in love, and in newness of life. It means beholding Jesus and by beholding becoming changed into His likeness, with advancement by forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is before after the Pattern, putting away all gloom and self-focus and not resting satisfied with merely saying I am a child of God. It is perfecting holiness in the fear of God, so that life reflects light to others on a path shining more and more unto the perfect day, with courage and faith in serving others.
To walk in the Spirit means settling into God instead of trusting self, especially when a measure of success tempts to carelessness in talk and conduct, with propriety in speech and consistency in action so that one's good is not made a matter of question. It requires wisdom sought from God with determined purpose and being true to principle, following God as dear children conformed to the image of Christ. When truth dwells within, Christ is within, and the life is sanctified through the truth so that spirit and actions speak louder than profession, speaking the truth in love rather than seeking mastery in discussion.
The flesh and the Spirit oppose each other and their desires conflict, so that yielding to the flesh prevents doing what is right and what a person would do. To live after the flesh is to let sensual appetites rule the being. The verse promises that walking in the Spirit keeps a person from carrying out the desires of the fallen nature and fulfilling the lust of the flesh.
Victory Over the Flesh
The works of the flesh are openly manifest as adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings and the like, the evil fruit of an evil tree, and those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. To live after the flesh is to let sensual appetites rule the being, while walking in the Spirit keeps a person from carrying out those desires because flesh and Spirit oppose each other so that yielding to the flesh prevents doing what is right. Belonging to Christ means having crucified the flesh with its affections, passions, lusts and desires, putting fleshly appetites and passions to death. This means yielding body and mind to God rather than letting sin rule, and preserving the body in purity and honor so it can serve Him in righteousness in obedience to His law.
Being led by the Spirit frees from being under the law and from bondage to the law of sin, as part of the freedom from condemnation enjoyed by those in Christ, which produces holiness and temperance. Walking in the Spirit is union with Christ lived out in bearing the fruit of the Spirit in love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance, showing Christ's character in conduct. It leaves no place for division, prejudice, vain glory, provoking or envying one another, but restores one overtaken in fault in the spirit of meekness while considering oneself, and bears one another's burdens to fulfill the law of Christ. Walking in the Spirit after forgiveness and justification is not folding the hands content with what has been accomplished but daily warfare. Each day consecration must be renewed and battle done with evil, ever on guard because old habits and hereditary tendencies to wrong strive for mastery, backed by all the powers and passions of unregenerate nature and the forces of the kingdom of darkness, and victory is striven for in Christ's strength instead of fulfilling the lust of the flesh.
Victory comes through the Spirit working by God's Word to impress truth on the heart, expose error, purify the heart and overcome hereditary and cultivated tendencies to evil, so the believer shares the divine nature and Christ's character is formed. It is not by limited human strength, judgment or position, for position cannot sanctify or develop character, but by God's transforming power and grace, and without that power no one becomes an overcomer of inherited or learned tendencies, appetites and passions. Each person must choose whether to follow self under Satan's influence or submit to be worked by the Holy Spirit. When the heart is fully surrendered and the will agrees with God's will rather than following natural impulses, the life bears good fruit and grace through Christ enables purity, holiness and an uncorrupted life. Those natural impulses are not harmless, for they can lead people to treat what offends God as virtue.
To walk in the Spirit is to live in the Spirit as living channels of light with life hid with Christ, filled with all the fullness of God, partaking the divine nature and walking as children of light. It means being true to principle as Daniel was, overcoming sins that easily beset, growing in grace and knowledge to the full stature of Christ by daily dying to self and sin, pressing onward and upward with defects growing less and less through refining, purifying, ennobling grace. Abiding in Christ in this way is required to meet God's requirements, for professed Christians who spend probation gratifying the flesh do not meet them and offer polluted, unacceptable offerings. Where fleshly lust controls and carnal passion rules, goodness is absent and skepticism about Christian realities is encouraged.
Unity Purity and Practice
Walking in the Spirit is the one way to prevent hatred and strife, dividing into parties, and believers biting and devouring one another, which bring present unhappiness and future ruin. It means continually seeking the Holy Spirit's guidance through constant prayer, which leads to love and unity and to helping one another in love instead of giving in to the desires of the fallen nature. Lived out, it is union with Christ shown in love and unity with brethren, bearing the fruit of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance, having crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts. It leaves no place for division, prejudice, vain glory, provoking one another or envying one another, but restores one overtaken in fault in meekness while considering oneself, and bears one another's burdens to fulfill the law of Christ.
This Spirit-led life is practical godliness that rules out using Christian liberty to indulge selfish desires. Those who walk with God do not let selfishness and careless disregard for holy things shape their actions. The flesh and the Spirit oppose one another and their desires conflict, affecting what a person does, and being led by the Spirit means not being under the law. Applied, this prevents carrying out the desires of the flesh in criticism and other divisive conduct belonging to the works of the flesh.
In church life this means not making differences of opinion prominent but thinking and dwelling on subjects where all can agree. It refuses selfishness, self-esteem and self-importance that dwell on things creating contention, put self in the foreground, regard others' ideas and opinions with disregard and contempt, and speak of them to make them contemptible so as to make self appear wise and consistent. Such a course is quite opposite to Christian charity, more like the workings of Satan than the movings of the Spirit of God, and a breach of God's law, for love to God comprises duty to God and love to neighbor duty to one another. Mutual love cherished at all times, in all places and under all circumstances is the credential to the world that God sent His Son to die to bring back the moral image of God in man, and cultivated becomes an abiding principle effectual in rooting out dissensions and divisions among brethren. Where envying and jealousies are kept up there is every evil work, and all this must be cleansed from the soul temple before God can work in much greater power, for to bless while those evils exist would confirm each party that he was right and his brother wrong, turning blessing into contention and guarding one another's interest into tearing and rending one another like brute beasts. Such a spirit is wholly in harmony with Satan, fulfilling his will and doing his pleasure, whose sure result is separation from God, giving him control over minds and affections to work deceivingly so that while professing to be children of God those unsanctified through the truth act out his spirit with mutual strife in place of mutual love, which persisted in proves sure ruin of the soul and ruins churches by their own unchristian course to one another.
The verse calls everyone enlightened by truth to purify the mind by obedience to the truth, turning from uncleanness to the holiness to which Christ who gave His life calls. It condemns corrupting easily led youth into unholy practices and destroying all power to uplift them, and requires ceasing defilement in order to serve Christ rather than sin, repenting of great sin and being converted. To live after the flesh is to let sensual appetites rule the being, whose manifest works include adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings and the like, and those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God, for the flesh and the Spirit are contrary so that without walking in the Spirit a person cannot do what is right and being led by the Spirit frees from bondage to the law of sin. Only the life-giving power of the gospel, the aid of the Great Physician, and the quickening power of the Holy Spirit can heal souls enfeebled by selfish degrading passions and restore the moral image of God in man.
Yielding to the flesh includes indulgence of appetite, for wrong habits of eating and drinking and indulgent eating strengthen animal propensities until they gain control over mental and spiritual powers. Indulgent eating strengthens animal passions and weakens spiritual powers, making moral self-control harder, for physical habits affect moral character so care for bodily health is part of resisting the flesh. The Spirit must govern every action so believers yield body and mind to God rather than letting sin rule, preserving the body in purity and honor to serve God in righteousness and remaining pure in body and spirit amid surrounding corruption as preparation for receiving immortality. This connects Spirit-led living with obedience to God's law and freedom from the flesh's desires, for Christ's followers crucify the flesh with its passions and lusts.
Walking in the Spirit means bringing desires and appetites under the purifying, refining influence of the Spirit by resisting carnal powers and lustful appetites. It cultivates pure, chaste thoughts and strengthens moral rather than lower desires. Indulgence of desire for flesh meat hinders this walk, and those who make their diet of fruits, grains and vegetables are much more susceptible to religious influences than those who indulge desire for flesh meat, which as dead animal flesh is not to be recommended as food. Excuses of faintness are not a reason to keep eating meat, but an argument for eating no more of it.
The verse is a call to yield the heart to God, to love to follow Jesus, and to respond to light and instruction already received rather than judging righteousness by comparison with others, letting God's Spirit influence and guide the heart so fleshly desires are not fulfilled. In daily work this requires genuine religious experience and living by God's requirements under the Holy Spirit's direction, for those who shut the Holy Spirit out will be unstable, sometimes serving God and sometimes evil. God's grace changes natural ways and habits by letting the Spirit rule in the heart, which can heal alienation even between family members such as a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.
To walk in the Spirit is to live continually under the Holy Spirit's guidance and power through constant prayer, with the heart yielded to His influence in a humble, Christlike life. The flesh and the Spirit oppose each other in conflicting desires, so that living after the flesh lets fallen appetites rule and prevents doing what is right. The promise is plain that those who walk in this way will not carry out the desires of the fallen nature. Belonging to Christ means having crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts, and living out union with Him in love, joy, peace and the rest of the fruit of the Spirit. This Spirit-led walk is the one way to prevent hatred, strife and Christians devouring one another, leading instead to love, unity and bearing one another's burdens.
Meaning and Original Setting
Paul's counsel was addressed to believers in Galatia who were troubled by false teachers bringing doctrines opposed to the gospel of Christ, whose influence had spread so widely among them that direct action against them risked ruinous strife and division. Walking in the Spirit was given as the one way to prevent hatred and strife, dividing into parties, and Christians biting and devouring one another, which bring present unhappiness and future ruin.
To walk in the Spirit means continually seeking the Holy Spirit's guidance and power through constant prayer, living under His direction in a humble, Christlike life with the heart yielded to His influence. It means living in the Spirit in a hallowed atmosphere with the mind attracted to heaven and heavenly things. Not resisting the Spirit in His office work allows the soul temple to be cleansed daily and sanctified for His indwelling, which honors the preciousness of every soul and avoids laying any cause of stumbling in the way.
Walking in the Spirit takes much grace and determined, earnest effort with resolve, thought and willpower to represent Christ in character and to make spiritual progress and walk in the light as children of light. It is the same as walking uprightly and in the way of the Lord, by faith, in the truth, in love, and in newness of life. It means beholding Jesus and by beholding becoming changed into His likeness, with advancement by forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is before after the Pattern, putting away all gloom and self-focus and not resting satisfied with merely saying I am a child of God. It is perfecting holiness in the fear of God, so that life reflects light to others on a path shining more and more unto the perfect day, with courage and faith in serving others.
To walk in the Spirit means settling into God instead of trusting self, especially when a measure of success tempts to carelessness in talk and conduct, with propriety in speech and consistency in action so that one's good is not made a matter of question. It requires wisdom sought from God with determined purpose and being true to principle, following God as dear children conformed to the image of Christ. When truth dwells within, Christ is within, and the life is sanctified through the truth so that spirit and actions speak louder than profession, speaking the truth in love rather than seeking mastery in discussion.
The flesh and the Spirit oppose each other and their desires conflict, so that yielding to the flesh prevents doing what is right and what a person would do. To live after the flesh is to let sensual appetites rule the being. The verse promises that walking in the Spirit keeps a person from carrying out the desires of the fallen nature and fulfilling the lust of the flesh.
Victory Over the Flesh
The works of the flesh are openly manifest as adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings and the like, the evil fruit of an evil tree, and those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. To live after the flesh is to let sensual appetites rule the being, while walking in the Spirit keeps a person from carrying out those desires because flesh and Spirit oppose each other so that yielding to the flesh prevents doing what is right. Belonging to Christ means having crucified the flesh with its affections, passions, lusts and desires, putting fleshly appetites and passions to death. This means yielding body and mind to God rather than letting sin rule, and preserving the body in purity and honor so it can serve Him in righteousness in obedience to His law.
Being led by the Spirit frees from being under the law and from bondage to the law of sin, as part of the freedom from condemnation enjoyed by those in Christ, which produces holiness and temperance. Walking in the Spirit is union with Christ lived out in bearing the fruit of the Spirit in love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance, showing Christ's character in conduct. It leaves no place for division, prejudice, vain glory, provoking or envying one another, but restores one overtaken in fault in the spirit of meekness while considering oneself, and bears one another's burdens to fulfill the law of Christ. Walking in the Spirit after forgiveness and justification is not folding the hands content with what has been accomplished but daily warfare. Each day consecration must be renewed and battle done with evil, ever on guard because old habits and hereditary tendencies to wrong strive for mastery, backed by all the powers and passions of unregenerate nature and the forces of the kingdom of darkness, and victory is striven for in Christ's strength instead of fulfilling the lust of the flesh.
Victory comes through the Spirit working by God's Word to impress truth on the heart, expose error, purify the heart and overcome hereditary and cultivated tendencies to evil, so the believer shares the divine nature and Christ's character is formed. It is not by limited human strength, judgment or position, for position cannot sanctify or develop character, but by God's transforming power and grace, and without that power no one becomes an overcomer of inherited or learned tendencies, appetites and passions. Each person must choose whether to follow self under Satan's influence or submit to be worked by the Holy Spirit. When the heart is fully surrendered and the will agrees with God's will rather than following natural impulses, the life bears good fruit and grace through Christ enables purity, holiness and an uncorrupted life. Those natural impulses are not harmless, for they can lead people to treat what offends God as virtue.
To walk in the Spirit is to live in the Spirit as living channels of light with life hid with Christ, filled with all the fullness of God, partaking the divine nature and walking as children of light. It means being true to principle as Daniel was, overcoming sins that easily beset, growing in grace and knowledge to the full stature of Christ by daily dying to self and sin, pressing onward and upward with defects growing less and less through refining, purifying, ennobling grace. Abiding in Christ in this way is required to meet God's requirements, for professed Christians who spend probation gratifying the flesh do not meet them and offer polluted, unacceptable offerings. Where fleshly lust controls and carnal passion rules, goodness is absent and skepticism about Christian realities is encouraged.
Unity Purity and Practice
Walking in the Spirit is the one way to prevent hatred and strife, dividing into parties, and believers biting and devouring one another, which bring present unhappiness and future ruin. It means continually seeking the Holy Spirit's guidance through constant prayer, which leads to love and unity and to helping one another in love instead of giving in to the desires of the fallen nature. Lived out, it is union with Christ shown in love and unity with brethren, bearing the fruit of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance, having crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts. It leaves no place for division, prejudice, vain glory, provoking one another or envying one another, but restores one overtaken in fault in meekness while considering oneself, and bears one another's burdens to fulfill the law of Christ.
This Spirit-led life is practical godliness that rules out using Christian liberty to indulge selfish desires. Those who walk with God do not let selfishness and careless disregard for holy things shape their actions. The flesh and the Spirit oppose one another and their desires conflict, affecting what a person does, and being led by the Spirit means not being under the law. Applied, this prevents carrying out the desires of the flesh in criticism and other divisive conduct belonging to the works of the flesh.
In church life this means not making differences of opinion prominent but thinking and dwelling on subjects where all can agree. It refuses selfishness, self-esteem and self-importance that dwell on things creating contention, put self in the foreground, regard others' ideas and opinions with disregard and contempt, and speak of them to make them contemptible so as to make self appear wise and consistent. Such a course is quite opposite to Christian charity, more like the workings of Satan than the movings of the Spirit of God, and a breach of God's law, for love to God comprises duty to God and love to neighbor duty to one another. Mutual love cherished at all times, in all places and under all circumstances is the credential to the world that God sent His Son to die to bring back the moral image of God in man, and cultivated becomes an abiding principle effectual in rooting out dissensions and divisions among brethren. Where envying and jealousies are kept up there is every evil work, and all this must be cleansed from the soul temple before God can work in much greater power, for to bless while those evils exist would confirm each party that he was right and his brother wrong, turning blessing into contention and guarding one another's interest into tearing and rending one another like brute beasts. Such a spirit is wholly in harmony with Satan, fulfilling his will and doing his pleasure, whose sure result is separation from God, giving him control over minds and affections to work deceivingly so that while professing to be children of God those unsanctified through the truth act out his spirit with mutual strife in place of mutual love, which persisted in proves sure ruin of the soul and ruins churches by their own unchristian course to one another.
The verse calls everyone enlightened by truth to purify the mind by obedience to the truth, turning from uncleanness to the holiness to which Christ who gave His life calls. It condemns corrupting easily led youth into unholy practices and destroying all power to uplift them, and requires ceasing defilement in order to serve Christ rather than sin, repenting of great sin and being converted. To live after the flesh is to let sensual appetites rule the being, whose manifest works include adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings and the like, and those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God, for the flesh and the Spirit are contrary so that without walking in the Spirit a person cannot do what is right and being led by the Spirit frees from bondage to the law of sin. Only the life-giving power of the gospel, the aid of the Great Physician, and the quickening power of the Holy Spirit can heal souls enfeebled by selfish degrading passions and restore the moral image of God in man.
Yielding to the flesh includes indulgence of appetite, for wrong habits of eating and drinking and indulgent eating strengthen animal propensities until they gain control over mental and spiritual powers. Indulgent eating strengthens animal passions and weakens spiritual powers, making moral self-control harder, for physical habits affect moral character so care for bodily health is part of resisting the flesh. The Spirit must govern every action so believers yield body and mind to God rather than letting sin rule, preserving the body in purity and honor to serve God in righteousness and remaining pure in body and spirit amid surrounding corruption as preparation for receiving immortality. This connects Spirit-led living with obedience to God's law and freedom from the flesh's desires, for Christ's followers crucify the flesh with its passions and lusts.
Walking in the Spirit means bringing desires and appetites under the purifying, refining influence of the Spirit by resisting carnal powers and lustful appetites. It cultivates pure, chaste thoughts and strengthens moral rather than lower desires. Indulgence of desire for flesh meat hinders this walk, and those who make their diet of fruits, grains and vegetables are much more susceptible to religious influences than those who indulge desire for flesh meat, which as dead animal flesh is not to be recommended as food. Excuses of faintness are not a reason to keep eating meat, but an argument for eating no more of it.
The verse is a call to yield the heart to God, to love to follow Jesus, and to respond to light and instruction already received rather than judging righteousness by comparison with others, letting God's Spirit influence and guide the heart so fleshly desires are not fulfilled. In daily work this requires genuine religious experience and living by God's requirements under the Holy Spirit's direction, for those who shut the Holy Spirit out will be unstable, sometimes serving God and sometimes evil. God's grace changes natural ways and habits by letting the Spirit rule in the heart, which can heal alienation even between family members such as a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.