Walking by the Spirit is God's alternative to relating to Him by simply focusing on His commandments and trying to keep them by our own moral will-power. As we walk by the Spirit, He gradually transforms our lives and empowers us to serve God effectively (see Romans 8:4b,6 and Galatians 5:22-23).
What does it look like to walk by the Spirit? In physical walking, there are three important elements: balance, locomotion, and direction. In walking by the Spirit, there are also three important elements:
Now for the third element:
You can see that this is a parallel passage. The subject is the same (see Galatians 5:16). The results of walking by the Spirit are the same, only described in more detail (see Galatians 5:22-23).
Notice what Paul says in Romans 5:25: "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit." The verb used in Greek here is different from the general verb "walk" in 5:16. It means to "walk in a line, to proceed under another's direction." It was sometimes used to describe soldiers who marched in response to the directions of their commanding officer. So to "keep in step with the Spirit" means to be alert and responsive to the Spirit's personal guidance in your life.
The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force that you learn to tap into and use to accomplish your agenda for your life. The Holy Spirit is a person who personally guides you into God's will and then empowers you to accomplish this as you choose to respond to His guidance.
God does not simply present you the rules, expect you to learn them, and carry them out in an impersonal, mechanical way. He gives you His Spirit to apply His will to your life in a very personal way. Just as Jesus did this when He was with His disciples, He promised that when He left, He would send "another Counselor" to render the same help (see John 14:16).
This whole area is messy because it is personal and subjective — there is no way to get around it. Because of this, Christians tend to polarize into two extreme camps.
Some Christians use this as an excuse to avoid using their minds and common sense. They claim that the Holy Spirit guides them about what clothes to wear, what route to take to work, what food to order from the menu, and so on. They claim that God talks to them this way virtually all the time, that His voice is unmistakable, and that you must be unspiritual unless you can claim the same thing. This is the danger of superstition — the need to find supernatural explanations for everything that happens. It becomes an excuse for laziness, anti-intellectualism, and even rebellion against God that soils His reputation; this can look like:
Others, usually more cerebral by temperament, feel uncomfortable with any subjective or unpredictable feature of Christianity. They want to demand irrefutable proof that a personal guidance was from God, and since this is not often possible, they view the whole subject as a waste of time. They use the excesses as an excuse to reject the whole area. This is the danger of deism — affirming God's existence but denying that He is personally involved in our lives in ways that we can recognize and cooperate with. Reducing spirituality to a recipe of Bible verses and safe formulae. This leads to a Christianity that is safe, predictable, boring, and sometimes even autonomous from God; this can look like:
Since God wants us to "keep in step with the Spirit," there must be a way to recognize His guidance and avoid both of these extremes.
God's Spirit will never guide in a direction that contradicts God's Word, because the same Spirit who guides us also authored God's Word. He will always guide you consistently with the two biblical priorities for your life: moral integrity and serving love. The following context of Galatians 5:25 speaks of the Spirit's guidance in both of these areas.
Read Romans 5:26. This is moral correction. If you keep in step with the Spirit, He will guide you away from attitudes and behaviors that are destructive to you and God's reputation, such as boasting and envy. He will speak to your conscience — directly, through the Word or another Christian — sensitizing it and arresting your attention on different issues at different times. We sometimes call this "the conviction of the Spirit."
Sometimes, this is very issue-specific.
Sometimes, this is more general awareness of attitudes God wants to change.
Be sure to view this activity of the Spirit from the perspective of God's grace, or you will fall prey to satanic accusation. God corrects you because He loves you, not to reject you. His correction is redemptive, to urge you to move forward with Him, rather than retributive, pointing His finger and condemning you for how horrible you are. (See Hebrews 12:6-10).
Read Romans 6:1-2. This is servant direction. If you keep in step with the Spirit, He will guide you into attitudes and behaviors that serve other people — like restoring fallen Christians and bearing one another's crushing burdens.
Sometimes, this can be very specific, such as Philip in Acts 8. Sometimes, this is a growing passion for a certain area of service, such as a pastor growing in their ability to teach or serving a demographic of people you have no prior experience serving.This does not mean that we should only serve people when we get such guidance. We should adopt and cultivate a lifestyle of servanthood – and know that as we do so, God's Spirit will guide us personally into deeds and areas of service for which we are uniquely suited.
I am not suggesting that you should experience dramatic guidance from the Spirit every day. Sometimes, God just wants us to follow Him in the ways we know and to trust Him. But I do not think it is normal or spiritually healthy to chronically lack the Spirit's guidance. If this is where you are spiritually, it is very correctable. Consider these possible reasons:
Have you received the Spirit? If this sounds completely foreign to you, it may be because you are a stranger to the Holy Spirit. Paul says that the things of God are foolishness to those who do not have His Spirit (see 1 Corinthians 2:14). This is very easy to remedy. All you need to do is ask Christ to forgive you and give you the gift of His Spirit (see John 7:37-39).
Do you ask for the Spirit's guidance? James says that many times we do not receive from God simply because we do not ask Him (see James 4:2). In my experience, this has been the case with the Spirit's guidance. I tend to want to put it on "auto-pilot" — selecting the moral areas I want to work on and service I want to do – and just staying on familiar ground. It is so much more productive and exciting to present myself to God each day and in every situation and ask Him for His guidance.
Do you want to submit to the Spirit's guidance? We may receive little guidance from the Spirit, even when we ask, because we are unwilling in a fundamental way to entrust our lives to God's agenda.
Sometimes this is because we do not understand God's grace and unconditional love. When this is so, we will tend to view the idea of responding to God's guidance as a confining, crushing duty or burden. If you understand grace, however, it will be an invitation to experience more of God's goodness and faithfulness and wisdom.
There have been times in my Christian life, even after coming into an understanding of grace, when I wanted God to be a consultant rather than the ruler of my life:
"I am wondering what I want to do in this area. God, let me know your opinion – and I will take that into consideration as I decide my course of action."
When we ask with this attitude, God is likely to reply "Do not waste your time. Let me know when you are ready to obey by guidance even before you know what it is."
This is the precious lesson David learned from God. David made many, many mistakes, but he knew that God was good and he entrusted his life to Him (see Psalm 32:8-10).
"Do not resist my correction! When I convict about an issue, listen to me! Do not make me take greater measures to convince you to make a course correction."
One sign of spiritual growth is that we do not always have to be convinced by others or reminded of the consequences. We begin to respond to the Lord's initial, gentle conviction.
Of course, none of us ever does this perfectly or all the time. If that was the condition for receiving continued guidance, none of us would ever receive any. But there is a general connection here. I once talked to a brother in faith who was complaining that God would not give him any guidance about what area of ministry he should concentrate on. As we talked, it became apparent that he had no interest in really being involved with people, and he was rationalizing a sexually immoral relationship with his girlfriend. I suggested to him that there was a connection between his refusal to respond to God's guidance in these obvious, foundational areas and God's silence about a more fine-tuning issue. He needed to respond to God’s guidance in that particular area before expecting to hear His guidance on something else.
