“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). When it says to “walk by the Spirit” we must understand that this implies action. We must actively pursue that which is the very nature of God. We can see in our walk with Jesus that our flesh is constantly at work against us and against the Spirit of God (See Galatians 5:17). Though we may read our Bibles and pray and attend church and try in many ways to stay pure, our flesh, which is our human nature, wages war against the Holy Spirit within us; and our struggle with sin continues against us.
It is when we try to live by our own idea of righteousness that we actually err and gratify the desires of the flesh. When this happens, we will experience shame, guilt and doubt, maybe even doubt in our salvation. The devil tries to trick us every time we fall short of the glory of God. But never try to determine what is righteous apart from the nature of God and never forget that the devil cannot take away your salvation, though we can certainly turn away from salvation. If we try to do things our own way, then it is inevitable that our fleshly desires will overcome us. Our self-righteousness will always fail for it is a false sense of righteousness, one that can never measure up to the standard of God. And there is no need to try to make up our own, for we have been made righteous through Jesus’ sacrifice. We have become Jesus, in essence, and Jesus has become us when he took our place on the cross.
It is only because of Jesus that we have been called out of darkness and into His marvelous light (See 1 Peter 2:9). Jesus took our sin to the grave when he was crucified and if you believe in him, it will stay there. But we must walk by the Spirit, by denying ourselves and submitting to God’s perfect way. Now we can live confidently in the hope–who is Jesus–that has been given to us, which is the grace of God!
Devotionals by Joel 