How to Walk in the Spirit

There is a kind of aliveness you were made for that food cannot give you, that exercise cannot give you, that no amount of comfort or pleasure can give you. It is the life that comes only from God. And there is one path into it. Paul names it plainly.

I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.

Galatians 5:16–17 (NKJV)

The flesh is that thing in you that wants to live in rebellion to God. And here is the trap: rebellion against God is rebellion against life itself, because life is found nowhere else but in Him. You do not become truly alive by eating or drinking or satisfying any appetite of the body — not in themselves. You become alive when you walk in the Spirit.

What the Spirit does in a life

Before we ask how to walk in the Spirit, look at what the walk produces. Paul and the whole book of Acts show us at least three things.

First, you stop being ruled by the flesh. The pull is still there, but you are no longer its debtor. If you live after the flesh, Paul says, you will die; but if you through the Spirit put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Walking in the Spirit is how the war inside you finally begins to turn the right way.

Second, you receive strength and ability beyond your own. Peter, filled with the Spirit, preached and thousands turned. Paul, filled with the Spirit, healed the sick and confronted sorcerers. Samson, filled with the Spirit, overcame an army. If you are not accomplishing what you sense you were made to accomplish, it may be that you have not yet learned to live by the Spirit.

And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.

Acts 4:31 (NKJV)

Third, you become the best version of yourself — a son of God. There is a prototype of you written in the heavens, a pattern of who you were meant to be. That is your destiny, the destination God is bringing you to. And it is reachable only by walking in the Spirit.

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

Romans 8:14 (KJV)

Paul knew this struggle from the inside. He described the misery of wanting to do good and finding himself doing the very thing he hated, until he cried out, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” The deliverance he found was not stronger willpower. It was the Spirit.

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Romans 8:1 (KJV)

That is the difference the walk makes. To set the mind on the flesh is death, Paul says, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. One road leads back into the old bondage and fear; the other leads into the freedom of sons who can cry, “Abba, Father.” You do not have to stay stuck in Romans 7. The Spirit carries you into Romans 8.

Understand what success really is. Success is not becoming what others have become. Success is becoming who you were meant to become. Only the Spirit can take you there.

Walking in the flesh, walking in the Spirit

Sometimes the clearest way to understand something is to see its opposite. The way you explain light to someone is to show them darkness. The opposite of walking in the Spirit is walking in the flesh.

To walk in the flesh is to live by what you see and observe in the natural world, even when it contradicts what God has said about the unseen world. If something looks good to you naturally, and you accept it as good no matter what God has said, you have walked in the flesh. If something looks bad naturally, and you accept it as bad regardless of what God has said, you have walked in the flesh.

To walk in the Spirit is the reverse. When something looks bad, but God calls it good, and so you accept it as good — that is the Spirit. When something looks good, but God calls it bad, and so you refuse it — that is the Spirit. It is to accept a thing as true simply because God says it is true, whatever your five senses are shouting.

This is the oldest battle there is. Watch how the serpent worked in the garden.

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

Genesis 3:6 (KJV)

She saw. It looked good. It was pleasant to the eyes. Every natural sense agreed — and God had said no. She walked by what she saw instead of by what God had said, and the whole world fell through that one step.

It is called a walk for a reason. None of us was born walking. We were taught it, shown it, and we practiced it, falling over and over until it became natural. Walking in the Spirit is the same. It is learning to be on the outside, in the seen world, what you already are on the inside, in the unseen.

Four steps into the flow

So how do you actually do it? Jesus gave the pattern in one invitation.

If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

John 7:37–38 (KJV)

If any man thirst. The first step is hunger — an abiding desire to see in your everyday life what God has already said is true of you in the Spirit. If God says you are righteous and holy in Christ, you ache to see righteousness and holiness show up in your days. If God says you are the head and not the tail, you refuse to settle for less. Thirst is where the walk begins.

Let him come to me. Jesus is the Word of God, so fill your mind with what God has said about the matter in front of you. The number one hindrance to walking in the Spirit is ignorance. My people perish, God says, for lack of knowledge. What you do not know is hurting you. And the moment you feel you have arrived and need no one to teach you anymore is the moment you grow poor.

And drink. Take what God has said and keep it in your heart. Think on it, talk about it, sing it, let your mind stay on it. This is what praise and worship really does — it keeps your mind fixed on God. Do not be an occasional visitor to the Word, a Christian only on Sundays.

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.

Isaiah 26:3 (KJV)

He that believes in me. Finally, put it into practice. Live as though what God said is true, because it is. Give, because you believe God has blessed you. Forgive people, because you believe God has forgiven you and them. Lay your hands on the sick, because you believe Jesus has already carried their sickness. You will fall many times. Get up, and keep at it. That is the walk.

It is already in you

Notice the strange thing Jesus said. The rivers flow out of your belly. How could you be thirsty for something that was already inside you?

Because what God wants to do in you and through you is already in you. It is not locked away in some pastor or bishop or big man of God. It is not still up in heaven, waiting. It is in you, placed there by the Spirit the day you believed.

So make up your mind today. Thirst for what God has said. Come to His Word. Drink it in until it saturates you. Then live as if every word of it is true — because it is. Do that, and out of your own belly will flow rivers of living water. Not because you are impressive, but because God has said so.