Lesson 11 Walking by the Spirit
Questions 5 and 6
This passage makes it clear that God calls believers to freedom. In the context of the Book of Galatians, this means freedom from the Law and freedom from slavery to sin. We are called to be free people, as that is what Jesus died to make us!
But Paul quickly adds that we are not to use our blood-bought freedom to indulge the flesh; to do so would be to abuse the liberty that Jesus died to give us!
So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
Galatians 5:16-18 (NIV)
The Spirit of God is all about the Son of God (John 14 through 16). He points us to Jesus’ perfect life lived in our place, to Jesus’ substitutionary death, to Jesus’ powerful resurrection, to Jesus’ ongoing ministry of intercession, and to Jesus’ return. Since the Spirit is all about the Son, if we are walking by the Spirit, we will become all about Jesus, too. And we won’t be living in self-gratification because the Spirit provides the power to die to our flesh and to walk in our new life of freedom from gratifying our flesh.
Question 5. According to Galatians 5:17, what conflict is every believer experiencing?
Every believer has a conflict raging within them. We have competing desires. We have the lusts of the flesh, which wants to gratify itself, and we have the intent of the Spirit, which is to crucify our lusts. This battle will be with us for life. We will have competing desires until we die. Being free in Christ does not mean that we are free from temptations. And these desires of our flesh might, at times, cause us to fall, so that “we do not do what we want.” But if this happens, we come to the cross and wash, and the Holy Spirit will raise us to walk again “in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4)