Many therapeutic procedures have been developed to help people. Health care professionals can pinpoint disorders with amazing accuracy. They can trace the problems back to their source, identify contributing factors, and project new courses of action to solve them. Unfortunately, these programs hit a wall at the point of implementation and sustained treatment. Medical experts cannot make anything happen. They can analyze, but they have no power to energize. They can offer suggestions and support, but, by their own admission, the real results depend on the willpower of the individual. But, the Holy Spirit generates power for spiritual change. “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Acts 1:8.
Life functions through energy, and food metabolizes into energy. Neither food nor metabolism are transformative without the other. Spiritually, the Holy Spirit energizes believers. Our spiritual food (the Word of God) becomes energy through the power of the Holy Spirit. Because of this, God confers the gift of the Holy Ghost upon believers to empower them to do spiritual feats. He begins where religion and reformation end. He supplies the actual power to implement change, plus He gives believers the power to perform the will of God throughout their lives. Jesus knew that the baptism of the Holy Spirit was critical to the success of the infant church, both as a corporate body and in the lives of individual disciples. His command for them to return to Jerusalem to be endued with “power from on high” emphasized this. He knew that even after training his disciples for over three years, they needed something more. Without the indwelling Spirit, they would have a form of religion, but would lack the power to make it work.
How do you walk in the Spirit? Let’s use a familiar picture to illustrate. If you are going out for a stroll in unfamiliar territory, you take note of the terrain. Is it mountainous? Rocky? Are there hazards that signal danger, or hostile animals or people to avoid? Can you read the signage? What about the traffic? With all these factors, you are safest if you have a companion to walk with you. Spiritually, these same conditions exist in walking with Christ. If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3:1-3.
Walking in the Spirit presents challenges to your flesh, but the Spirit lifts you up to a victorious plane of living. 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. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Galatians 5:16-18.
Here’s the point: the Holy Spirit is pure and powerful, but we are leaky vessels. Tension exists between the Spirit of God and our flesh, and the flesh does not surrender without a contentious fight. Paul said, “For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.” Romans 7:13. We want to do right, but the flesh counters our every attempt to change. It’s not the fault of the law of God—His laws are perfect. The problem lies in our sinful flesh. It is self-willed, incorrigible, and ready to rebel against any restraint.
The secret? Stay filled with the Spirit. Renew daily. Live in a state of God-consciousness. A spiritual birth survives through a spiritual lifestyle.