Walking in the Spirit-1

I've been preparing a series of lectures on grace and wanted to put a few of my thoughts out here on the net for my readers. Walking in grace is all about walking in the Spirit. Walking in the Spirit: Oh great, another phrase that we’ve spiritualized until no one seems sure what Paul was talking about. What is walking by the Spirit? We envision a holy-man of sorts, eyes fixed on the clouds, walking in a zombie-like trance.
I think Paul meant something much more practical. Within the context of the whole book of Galatians, Paul is talking about walking in grace. He’s telling us that in order to win the battle over the flesh, we can’t do it by the law. We have to do it by grace!

“Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”
Galatians 3:3

Let’s go back and review a basic concept. How were we saved? By grace, right?
So right at salvation, a huge victory was won over our sins, and it had nothing to do with us. It had everything to do with the cross, with who God is and what he does. Grace is the avenue. Grace is the divine quality whereby God freely loves, forgives and exalts sinners into sonship. Grace frames every interaction that God has with his children. We were saved by grace and by grace God moves us on towards the image of his son.

“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son….”
Romans 8:29a

But most of us have accepted the part of salvation by grace, but we’ve left the altar and decided to carry on in our own strength. We fail and feel guilty and so we’re reluctant to approach God for help. That’s why addictions are so difficult to combat. Because, not only do we try to fight them in our own strength, we shrink away from grace because of our guilt.
Paul taught that when we were crucified with Christ so that we could find freedom from our enslavement to sin.
Some of you are thinking, That’s exactly what my addiction is like. I’m a slave. It says jump and I say, “how high?”
So just what does being crucified with Christ mean? First, Paul says we know this to be true. That’s something that the Holy Spirit settles in our hearts.

“We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.”
Romans 6:6

A few verses later, Paul says we must consider this so. This is what the King James Version refers to as “reckoning.”

“So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
Romans 6:11

Paul likens being put to death with Christ so we will understand personally that a debt has been paid on our behalf. Christ died for our sins. In effect, we died, because that was what was required to pay off our debt. But Paul’s metaphor of dying works on another level. We’ve died to the law, our marriage partner, so in effect, we are free from its stranglehold on our souls to marry another, Christ, the personification of grace.
So walking in the Spirit and being crucified with Christ are both equated in the scripture to overcoming enslavement to sin.
But what does it mean?
I believe the answer comes as we begin to experience the freedom of grace.

“For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.”
Romans 6:14

This is the secret to overcoming addiction: grace.
Paul makes it clear through Romans six and seven that the law is powerless to help us live the life we desire. Concentrating on the law only seems to stimulate a desire within us to break the law. So in my efforts to win over addiction (habitual sin), by holding up my determination not to break the law…I fall.
In reading Romans eight, we gain more insight into just what Paul means by walking according to the Spirit. He says,

“For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”
Romans 8:5-6

It all works together. Considering ourselves dead and setting our mind on the things of the Spirit assist us in our fight for freedom.
If we keep our minds fixed on beating the problem (fulfilling the law), we fail. If we fix our minds on Christ, we find the victory we seek.