Walking in the Spirit or . . .

How often do we hear the call to walk in the Spirit? Jesus did it and encouraged it. The first apostles did it and encouraged it.  Paul did it, taught it and encouraged it.

Today we talk about it, but do we do it?

We have come to the place where we are convinced a person either walks in the Spirit or they walk in the flesh.  That causes us to believe that as long as we are not pursuing and constantly gratifying our flesh that WE MUST be walking in the Spirit.

But is that true?

How much of what we call walking in the Spirit is really walking in our souls? How much is driven by the soulish side of us - that which makes up our feelings, our will and our emotions?

We may be free of providing for our flesh and the lusts thereof; but what about our selfish desires and emotionally driven will?  We can so quickly and easily become tied to our soulish nature to where every circumstance of life establishes our spiritual condition. And yet we call that walking in the Spirit. 

We tell ourselves to break through in prayer, but the feelings and drive of our soul can become so strong that we superimpose our own will into our prayer and what we "hear" from God. We find ourselves basing God's leading on our own false pretense.

The answer,  therefore, to this challenge is the Word of God.  The writer of Hebrews says this:

Hebrews 4:12 AMP

For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart.

The Word of God divides the soul and spirit. It brings us to a place of reckoning. It causes us to have our minds renewed. It transforms our lives to a place that is beyond ourselves.

To walk in the Spirit is to walk in God's will. God's will is always found in God's Word.  God's Word possesses the power to get us away from our soulish and selfish desires and into alignment with God's plan.