There are just some days when in the battle between trying in your own strength and living in the realm of the Spirit you just feel you’re not doing too well. There are just some days when you just may not feel worthy to be called God’s child. You can’t identify anything that warrants or qualifies you for this amazing position. So once again … welcome Holy Spirit! Where would we be without Him?!
Today are you going to try and be the best Christian you can ever be? Why? You know you will fail! Why try and be what you already are? Why try to do what He has already done for you? Whatever part of the godly lifestyle you set your aim on it will only show you how far short you have failed to keep that standard. The Torah was never meant to be a means of salvation but always to establish guilt for sin. So why try to become free through effort to keep what we will never be able to keep? Why become enslaved again by trying? Why say we have tried when Jesus has died for our freedom? Don’t set yourself up to fail. Live in the freedom He has won for you.
As we move into this passage where sins and fruit are mentioned it is important to understand the above. This is not about the Spirit v flesh; this is about the Spirit v the Torah attempts for approval, such as circumcision. That is the context and in ours it is the same. We might not be battling against those who say we should be circumcised but we are battling against those who say we should be like this and that to be accepted by God.
“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 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. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” (Galatians 5 v 16-18)
If you are walking in the Spirit, living by the Spirit, you will find that the flesh life (the desire to try and find approval from God by your lifestyle) will not get a hearing! So as we read these verses this is not a command ‘do not gratify’ that’s not what it says. Paul is stating a fact. Live by the Spirit, walk with the Spirit and you will live, death will not come near you.
The Torah in Deuteronomy is set in the context of those 2 perimeters of life and death. Everyone wants life, we all want to become all that we can become in God, no one wants death.
Walking with the Spirit brings life and holds back, pushes back the temptation to try to accomplish the Torah for acceptance (and the further lists that man have created) which leads to death because we will continually fail, we will never ever succeed.
We therefore today call on the Spirit again so that we walk with Him.
Missions Paul 