By Scott Brown
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Waverly
Focal Passage: Galatians 5:16-25
Amos 3:3 asks, “Can two walk together unless they are agreed?” As the people of God, we are to be walking in the Spirit and with the Spirit. But what does it mean to walk with the Spirit?
First, just like Amos, we must be agreed. We must agree to be going the same direction as Him. In Experiencing God, Henry Blackaby teaches we must find out where God is at work and join Him there.
We need to stay prayed up and surrendered to see the direction in which God is walking and eagerly walk with Him. Walking with the Spirit is not just about the final destination but the fellowship along the way. Walking with God gives the picture of fellowship with Him.
Nothing is pulling us away and nothing stands between. Let us walk with Him in perfect fellowship with Him. In the text, Paul shows the signs we are not walking with the Spirit. The fruits of the flesh are evident. These things are evidences we are walking the wrong way and fellowshiping with the flesh. The fruit of the Spirit are those things God produces in the believer as they walk with Him in fellowship with Him.
Brown
Also, we are told to keep in step with the Spirit. This means we must strive to match His pace and not lag behind or lunge ahead. We are walking with Him, He is setting both the direction and the pace.
I think of the children of Israel in the desert. God is leading them through His presence in a pillar of fire and smoke. This offers protection and light at night as well as a clear direction as they wander. The only thing they needed to know was that when the pillar moves, we move. Where the pillar stays, we stay.
If the pillar started moving they needn’t call a committee meeting, see what other people were doing, take a vote, get a consensus or see if it might upset anyone.
When the pillar starts to move, we move. If we don’t, we get left behind as God’s presence, blessing and protection move onward.
Today, countless Christians and churches are so concerned and content in their desert tents that the pillar has moved on and they either didn’t notice or don’t care. The people of God need to be ever eager to move as God moves, when God moves.
I know this is a problem for us. We are Baptists and Baptists don’t do change well. But God’s into change. He makes us a new creation when we are saved. He spoke and changed nothing into everything at creation.
He will one day burn up this world we’ve always known and make something entirely new without the sin, shame, death and curse we’ve always had. I tell you, we’ve definitely “never done it that way before.”
Let us crucify our desire to retreat into consistent comfort and commit right now and forever that we will walk in the Spirit, with the Spirit, yielded to the Spirit always. May God bless us to walk as He walks in holiness B&R
