Bible Passage: “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16 NIV)
Scripture Reading: Romans 8:1-13; Colossians 2:6-15; Hebrews 12:1-4
Walking in the Spirit does not eliminate conflict.
It intensifies it.
The flesh doesn’t quietly retire and go away when grace enters the heart. Sin resists, schemes, and wages war.
But Scripture teaches an essential truth:
Men do not fight sin with our own resolve alone; no, we fight it with Gospel power.
The Spirit applies the finished work of Christ to the ongoing battle of sanctification. Sin is not defeated by shame or self-hatred. Men love to be hard on ourselves, thinking that if we work harder and are tougher, we can power through to accomplish our goals.
But sin is all-pervasive and often feels all-encompassing. It is the foe you cannot and will not ever vanquish on your own.
It’s only when men learn to bring sin into the light of the Cross and trust the Spirit to apply Christ’s death to specific desires that we can see real victory over our sin, because what we’re actually seeing then is Christ’s victory over it.
The flesh thrives on isolation and secrecy. The Spirit works through confession, truth, and dependence.
To walk in the Spirit is to refuse both despair and self-confidence.
Despair forgets grace. Self-confidence forgets weakness.
The Spirit keeps us in the narrow place of humble dependence where we remember both our need for grace and our access to it.
Gospel-powered warfare looks like this: naming sin honestly, rejecting its lies, clinging to Christ’s sufficiency, and asking the Spirit for the strength you do not possess on your own.
Victory may be slow, but the direction is clear. The Spirit never leads men to make peace with sin. We must war against it, but we war by surrendering to Jesus. English theologian John Owen said, “All other ways of mortification are vain, all helps leave us helpless; it must be done by the Spirit.”
Walking in the Spirit means believing that Christ’s death is strong enough to deal not only with guilt but with ongoing corruption. Sin loses its power when it loses its secrecy, and its appeal is answered with a greater affection for Christ.
Prayer: Holy Spirit, expose my sin without crushing my hope. Teach me to fight with the power of the Gospel and the Spirit, not the strength of my will. Amen.
Reflection: What sin have you been trying to manage instead of mortifying it by the Spirit? What does it look like to bring that thing to God today?
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