I had people asked me “how do one walk in the Spirit?
Walking in the Spirit really does not need a formula. However,
there needs to be an attitude of openness toward God. When the Spirit started
teaching me to walk in the Spirit He made it clear that this openness toward
Him is not open for negotiation. You cannot have a plan A and a plan B and be dead
set on wanting Him to negotiate your terms with you.
More often than not, we do have plan A & B but we do not
even realize that. There are times our contingency plans are more obvious to
us. But sometimes they are not, while they might not be obvious to us, but they
are obvious to Satan and he used them against us. If you take for instance someone
who reads something from Chambers, Spurgeon, Tozer, Paul Washer, etc then, dismiss
it while saying well, this guy is out of his mind and these things he is
talking about, I do not need them to be saved.
Then the conclusion here is that you do not have the Holy Spirit
in you to begin with to help you understand the truth of God. Or it could be
you utter such words simply because in the depth of your heart you know what
you read upset your plans. But because your plan B is more important to you than
God’s plan A, you stick to your guns. With a mindset like that, you forfeit
your walk in the Spirit. The spiritual darkness that is looming over your heart
and soul comes from the fact that you know something but you have no intention
of obeying God. No matter how beautiful or successful your life might look on
the outside, no matter how hard you appear to work for God, well, none of it is
being done in the Spirit and you are not walking in the Spirit. This is just
one tiny example amongst all those examples that I could give you. But I hope
you see where I am getting here.
A test that will never fail us as to whether or not we are
walking in the Spirit is the depth of Christ being revealed to us. Understand
that I am not talking about us exercising gifts we may or may not have. Now, I am not saying that He cannot work this
life in you because as I mentioned in my book, I have seen God working this Christian
life through people, in spite of themselves. But, you are as useful to Him as Pharaoh
was in His hand. The only difference between you and Pharaoh is that you have
found more grace in His eyes. Openness to God keeps us surrendered to His will,
teachable and obedient, hence, you are not perfect, you still have a long way
to go but you are walking in the Spirit.
After I learned to walk in the Spirit, God with His sense of
humour took one of my pet peeves to show me how easy I can be separated from
the oneness with Him and how important I keep focussing on Him and walk moment
by moment to keep this oneness. My greatest pet peeve is people who pick their
noses. I find it so gross and I cannot understand why not using tissues. Anyway,
a lesson that I cannot forget no matter how much I want to, is that God showed
me one day, after I experienced His awesome divine nature that could be
compared to oxygen so pure that you know it is out of this world. It is so pure
that you cannot imagine living without it and if we could see what we are
missing, we would indeed make sure we walk moment by moment so that we do not
spend one minute out of His nature.
He showed me even if I have a sin so small that it could be the
size of a tiny booger, He said to me, even though you could hold it between
your fingers and re-enter your union with me, it would not be possible because this
tiny booger however small cannot find a place in my nature. He said if I allow
you to get in without the repentance and the cleansing of the blood, you would
introduce dirt within me. For someone else this might not be important, but to
me, I can't live without this visual, to remind me where I am at in my oneness
with Him. I need to constantly ask myself, have I moved away from Him without
even knowing it?
With that in mind, I leave you with a good description of the
subject with pastor Philpott
This is just an excerpt from J. C. Philpott's sermon preached in 1862
"Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Romans 8:1
1. To walk, then, after the Spirit is to walk after and in a revealed
Christ– not a Christ in the letter, but a Christ in the Spirit; not a
Christ in the word only, but a Christ in the heart, formed there the hope of
glory. The work of the Spirit is to reveal Christ, to glorify him, and make him
precious to believing hearts; to apply his blood to the conscience, to discover
his righteousness, and to shed abroad his love. To walk, then, after the Spirit
is to follow his gracious discoveries of the Lord Jesus to the heart, and to
realize them by a living experience of their sweetness and blessedness.
2. But again, the Spirit leads into all truth. This was
the promise given by Christ to his disciples– "Howbeit when he the Spirit
of truth has come, he will guide you into all truth." (John 16:13.) It is
impossible for us to know the truth savingly and experimentally, except the
blessed Spirit guides us, as it were, into the very bosom of it. Until then its
beauty and blessedness, its liberating, sanctifying influence are hidden from
our sight. But if I am guided by the Spirit into all truth, if he himself
condescends to lead me into the truth as it is in Jesus, and enable me to walk
in the truth as he leads me into it, then I may be said to walk after the
Spirit.
3. But again, the Spirit is spoken of in the word of truth as an Intercessor, teaching
us how to pray and what to pray for; no, he himself is represented as
"interceding for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." If,
then, I pray in the Spirit, I walk after the Spirit, for I walk in that path of
prayer and supplication in which he is pleased to lead me. He has promised to
help my infirmities; and therefore if I find my many infirmities helped by his
grace and overcome by his power, then too I may be said to walk after the
Spirit.
4. But the Spirit is also the author of faith, hope, and love, for
these are fruits and graces which spring from his work upon the heart. If,
then, I believe in Jesus with a spiritual faith, if I hope in him with a
spiritual hope, and love him with a spiritual love, I walk after the Spirit;
for the Spirit moves me both to will and to do those things; and as he leads I
follow.
5. But the Spirit is also a Spirit of contrition, of
brokenness, of humility, of godly sorrow for sin and honest confession of it. If,
then, I am ever blessed with humility, contrition, repentance, and godly sorrow
for sin, I walk after the Spirit.
6. But the Spirit is also the Comforter of God's people,
for that is the name which our blessed Lord himself gave him. So that if he
ever comforts your heart with his choice consolations, and you walk after his
comfort, desiring to drink into it, and following after everything which may
promote it, you follow in the steps in which the Comforter leads you.
7. But if we walk after the Spirit, we shall also be spiritually-minded, which
is life and peace; our affections will be fixed upon heavenly realities where
Jesus sits at the right hand of God; for all this is his special work, and
nothing short of his power and influence can produce it. If then we are favored
at any time with this spirituality of mind and these heavenly affections, it is
a proof that we are walking after the Spirit.
8. But again, through the weakness of the flesh and the power of
temptation, we often fall into a state of coldness, darkness, hardness, and
even miserable carelessness in the things of God. Then the Spirit has to revive
our drooping graces, bring us out of this miserable state of carnality and
death, to lead us to the fountain once opened for all sin and uncleanness in
the blood of the Lamb, to renew our hope, strengthen our faith, and impart to
us fresh confidence. As we then walk in the light, life, and power of these
gracious revivals, we walk after the Spirit.
