Walking by the Spirit

The DNA of the Christian life is to be centered completely around the person and activity of the Holy Spirit.

We see this in Paul’s writings, and especially in the book of Galatians.

Galatians 5:25 (NASB), “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”

It is important that we understand the first part of this verse. Paul has said that if we “live” or have been brought into the new spiritual life by the Spirit, then we must continue to walk by the Spirit.

The issue that we have alot of times is that nobody ever talks about how to walk by the Spirit. What does that mean? What does it look like? How do we do it? These are three things that I want us to look at today!

If we don’t understand these things, then we can’t say that we have a real relationship with the Spirit. This is not good because if we do not have a relationship with Him, then we don’t have a relationship with any member of the Godhead.

I say this because the Holy Spirit is the only member of the Trinity that is here on earth. God the Father is in heaven. He has never left. God the Son came here in the flesh, but then He told His disciples that He was leaving and going to send someone else. That someone is the Holy Spirit, and His job is to reveal to us the Father and the Son. Without the Spirit, we can not come to the Father or the Son.

What Does it Mean to Walk by the Spirit?

The English translation of this passage of Scripture is “walk by.” I like the literal Greek definition as well though. The Greek word is, “stoicheo” and it means, “To hold to, conform, or to follow.”

These words tell me three things about walking by the Spirit:

We are to hold to Him. This means that we are literally suppopsed to grab ahold of him and never let go. Think about it this way: Let’s say that you and your child are crossing a river. This river is very strong and your child is too weak to fight it. What do you tell them? Hold onto me. Sometimes life feels like a giant river that is trying to sweep us away! Am I the only one that feels that way? What does Paul tell the Galatians? He says that your job is to hold onto the Spirit and refuse to let go. He says it in the same way that we would tell our children to hold onto us while we cross a river.

The second definition is to conform. The definition of conform is, “to comply with rules, standards, or laws.” When a police officer pulls you over and asks you to step out of your vehicle what do you do? You get out of the vehicle. You are conforming to the police officers requests and demands. In the same way, walking by the Spirit means that we conform to His desires, His requests, and His standards.

The third definition is to follow. This is pretty simple. We all know what it means to follow somebody. It means to listen to what they are saying, to watch what they are doing, and to mimic that to the best of our ability.

If we put this all together here is what we get from what Paul is saying in this passage:

He is telling us to hold onto the Holy Spirit, to conform to what He tells us, and to follow Him wherever He goes.

A much simpler way to say this is that we are supposed to live life WITH the Spirit.

So that brings me to my next point:

What does it look like to Walk By the Spirit?

I believe that Jesus is the best example we could ever have. As a matter of fact, the scripture tells us that we are supposed to be conformed to the image of God’s son. We are supposed to look like Jesus, not in physical features, but in personality and action.

John 5:19 (NASB), “Therefore Jesus andswered and was saying to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the son also does in like manner.”

As Jesus went about His life, He was simply walking by the Spirit. Anything the Father said, Jesus was so tuned in, that He heard. Anything the Father wanted to do, Jesus was so tuned in that he could see it.

Before we go further, we must understand something. Jesus was God’s son, but scripture says that He stripped himself of his divinity and came on earth as a man. He was 100% God and 100% man, but He chose to walk on this earth as a man. Just like you and me. Only after the Holy Spirit came and rested on Him, do you see Jesus begin walking in power.

He did this so that He could be the example of what a person yielded to the Holy Spirit looks like. If everything He did was because He was God, then how could he tell any human being that they could do the same thing?

Another example is found in Mark chapter 5.

There is way too much scripture for me to read here, but i encourage you to listen to what I am saying, then go back and read it for yourself later!

mark 4:35 (NASB), “On that day, when evening came, He said to them, ‘Let us go over to the other side.’ Leaving the crowd, they took HIm along with them in the boat, just as He was; and other boats were with Him.”

I want you to notice something, this verse says that Jesus and His disciples are amongst a crowd of people and He says, “Let us go to the other side of this water.” Crowds followed Jesus because sick people needed healed, dead needed raised, demons needed cast out, and the people were eager to learn from Jesus. Jesus looked at this crowd of people and told His disciples that they needed to leave.

Then when they get into the boat, Jesus falls asleep while there is a crazy storm. The disciples wake HIm up and He gets up and rebukes the storm. This tells me two things about people who are led by the Spirit:

Spirit-Led people are not anxious or worried because they know what God told them.

Spirit-Led people have authority over anything that tries to come against what God told them to do.

Then we get to Mark 5:1-8 and we see how led Jesus really was. Verses 1-5 describe the condition of the demon possessed man, but verses 6-8 tell us something interesting. it says, “Seeing Jesus from a distance, he ran up and bowed down before Him; and shouting with a loud voice, he said, ‘What business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore you by God, do not torment me!’ For He had been saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!”

The image that the scripture shows us here is that before Jesus got close to the demon, He began rebuking it, then that demon possessed man ran to Jesus. This is what it looks like to walk by the Spirit. You are at peace, you are operating in authority, and you know what your assignment when you approach it.

How do we walk by the Spirit?

We must keep ourselves focused on Him

The nation of Israel was built around the tabernacle. Above the tabernacle was a visible cloud of God’s glory. Israel was supposed to have their attention on that glory above the tabernacle while they were doing all of their other daily tasks. When the glory moved, Israel packed up their camp and followed it.

In Ezekiel 1:12 talking about the living creatures the Bible says, “And each went straight forward; wherever the Spirit was about to go, they would go, without turning as they went.

These are Old Testament image of what it means to be Spirit led. While we are going about our daily tasks and our daily routines, we must do our best to keep our attention to the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is not just with us, He is in us. We weren’t made to ever be outside of HIs presence, but to constantly live in His presence. I really believe that a lot of the reason why we don’t feel Him as much as we desire to, is simply because we are so busy trying to usher Him into our lives, that we actually hinder our experience of Him.

God calling us to be with Him and spend time with Him is God calling us to rest.

We must talk to Him

Talk to the Holy Spirit like you do everyone else.

He really desires to talk to us. I believe that God speaks in sentences. I believe that God speaks directly to our situation. I believe that He will never contradict His word, but I don’t believe that He is confined to His word.

If He tells me to go to starbucks and pray for the barista behind the counter, I will never find that in scripture, but that doesn’t mean that God isn’t the one who told me to go.

Talk, but then listen. And understand that you won’t hear Him like you hear others. We hear others from an external perspective, and we are so used to that, that it is sometimes hard for us to recognize the Holy Spirit speaking to us.

He is joined with us in our spirits. We are Spirits, who have a soul, that live in a body. Your human spirit is where the Holy Spirit lives, so we do not hear Him in the same way we hear others. It is more like an internal hearing.

It is very easy to mistake the Holy Spirit for a random thought in your head. This is because your soul is the processor. Your soul is your mind will and emotions. When your physical senses gather information, it is processed through your soul. When the Holy Spirit gives you visions, dreams, or speaks to you, it is also processed through your soul. So it is super easy to mistake Him for yourself.

Sometimes the best way to describe the voice of the Spirit is by saying you feel an “Inner-nudge,” or you have an “Inner knowing.”

The only way to know for sure is by comparing what He says to the Word, making sure it is in alignment with His character, and stepping out in faith to see if it yields fruit. If it does, it was a word from the Spirit, but if it doesn’t, then it wasn’t.

We must yield to Him

Use the imagery and the picture of clay yielding to a potter.

Use the imagery of a person yielding to a chair.