Dear Friends,
Yesterday I shared some thoughts about walking in the spirit.
Simply put, "Walking in the Spirit" means traveling through the
day with Jesus as your constant traveling companion.
Everywhere you go, you take Jesus with you.
If you go on the internet you will read all kinds of
suggested steps that one should take in order to "Walk in the
Spirit," but I think we often make living the Christian life too
complicated. In an effort to simply the process, I would suggest only
three things that are a must if you want to “Walk in the Spirit."
First you need to know that Jesus is your Lord and Savior. You
have no inner resources to help you on your walk unless the power
of the living Lord Jesus is living within you. Make sure you have accepted Him.
If not, pray and ask Him to come into your life. Recognize that it is simply
His grace that saves you. Salvation has nothing to do with what you do for
Christ, but what Christ has done for you. He has saved you by His grace and He
has fashioned and prepared you for Christian service, so get going.
Two, you must pray. Ask God to help you walk in the spirit.
Jesus said, “Ask and it shall be given to you; seek and you shall find;
knock and it shall be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7). The Greek verbs ask, seek,
and knock are all in the perfect tense. This means they speak of continual
action, of continually knocking, seeking, and asking. It is not something
we do once a week at church or on some retreat. It is a continuous commitment
as moment by moment you say, “Lord I need your help.” “I want to be used
by you.” I want to be sensitive to your Spirit.” “I want only to do want
you want me to do and go where you want me to go." God wants to speak to
us, and we can’t hear Him, if we are doing all of the talking. Listen more than
you talk, and you will hear His voice.
And finally make sure we are constantly seeking His wisdom from
His Word. Often times we make spending time in the Word an option and not a
priority. If it is an option, we can choose to be in it or not. If it is a
priority, we know it is like air; we need to inhale it, if we want to
survive.
"Walking in the Spirit" requires nourishment. We
must be reading and feeding on God’s Word; it can’t be a hit or miss
undertaking. That is why I am so glad that many in our church have made reading
through the Bible an annual spiritual discipline. If we are not committed to
some form of systematic study of the bible, feeding upon the Word daily, our
spirit will weaken and the flesh will take over.
Job says I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my
necessary food (Job 23:12, NKJV).
Jesus reminds us that His words are “spirit and life,” so reading
and feeding are musts if we are to "Walk in the Spirit."
Although we have the Spirit of God living within us if we have
yielded our lives to Jesus, we still carry that old carcass of flesh
within, and that fleshly nature wages war with the spirit. How can we
free ourselves from the bondage of flesh that wants to limit our time in prayer
and in the word? The answer is simple. "Don’t feed the flesh, but
strengthen the spirit."
Don’t make the consumption of the Word and prayer the last things
on our daily to do list. Plant them at the top, and make them your most
important priorities.
Diet and exercise are the keys to "Walking in the
Spirit," so feed yourself with the Word and exercise constantly by walking
on your knees. If you do, you will find that "Walking in the Spirit"
will not be some unusual and mystical encounter, but a common and ordinary
experience that will change your life while touch and blessing the lives of
others.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Yours in faith and friendship,
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