Walking in the Spirit

If you have felt divided, wanting good and drawn to wrong at the same time, you are not crazy, and you are not uniquely wicked. Scripture explains it exactly:

There are two forces at work in a believer: "the flesh" (the Greek sarx, which here means not merely the body but our whole old fallen nature with its cravings), and "the Spirit," the Spirit of God now living in us. They want opposite things. This is why willpower alone keeps failing; you are trying to win a spiritual war with a natural weapon. The answer is not more gritted teeth. It is to feed and follow the Spirit until He, not the flesh, is the one setting the direction of your steps.

Galatians gives more than a command; it gives the way. Three things stand out.

First, crucify the flesh, and keep doing it. "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts" (Galatians 5:24). Do not soften that word. The Greek for "crucified" is estaurosan, from stauroo, to nail a person to a cross, and Paul chose it on purpose. A cross is not a tool for disciplining the flesh, taming it, or reasoning with it; a cross is for killing. Crucifixion was the most deliberate and certain execution Rome had, public, shameful, and final, and once a man was nailed up there was no climbing down. That is God's verdict on the old nature: not house arrest, but a death sentence. And notice the two sides of it. "Have crucified" points to a decisive, settled act: when you came to Christ, your "old man" was crucified with Him (Romans 6:6; Galatians 2:20). It is done. Yet crucifixion was also a slow death; the crucified did not die in an instant, but hung there dying. That is why Jesus said it must be renewed every day: "let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me" (Luke 9:23). The flesh has already been sentenced and nailed up; your daily task is to keep it there, refusing to let it down off the cross. Every day you say no to the flesh and yes to the Spirit.

Second, be led, don't just be restrained. "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God" (Romans 8:14). This is more than avoiding sin; it is following a Person. You learn His voice in the Word and in prayer, and you go where He leads, one prompting at a time.

Third, mortify sin by the Spirit, not by the flesh. "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live" (Romans 8:13). That word "mortify" has gone soft on us; today it can mean merely to embarrass. But it comes from the Latin mortificare, "to put to death" (from mors, death), and the Greek here, thanatoute, from thanatoo, means exactly that: to kill. It is also present tense, an ongoing command, keep putting the deeds of the body to death, not once but as a way of life. (Paul paints the same picture in Colossians 3:5, "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth," using a word that means to make dead.) And notice "through the Spirit." Even the killing of sin is not done by raw willpower but in His strength. Then Paul closes the loop: "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit" (Galatians 5:25). We already live by Him; now let every step match.

Stop measuring your Christian life by a single heroic effort, and start measuring it by your next step. Right now, in the small decision in front of you, which are you feeding, the flesh or the Spirit? Victory is not won in one grand battle; it is won one surrendered step at a time.

So this week, walk close. Spend time in the Word and in prayer where the Spirit speaks. When the flesh rises, do not just wrestle it; turn and follow the Spirit instead. Deny yourself daily, be led like a child, and let His fruit grow in you. Do this, and the promise holds: you "shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh."