Saul2PaulBlog: November 16, 2017

Hi Church in the USA! What a great day! You’re walking with the King now! No longer sentenced to a life of guilt and disapproval. That is great news for all of us who walk in the spirit! When we claim the life Christ dies for us to have, we get to walk the walk, or in other words we make “halakah”

Language lesson sidebar: “halakah” is the word to use for walking with the spirit. It is a Hebrew word that means walking in the ethical pattern of life prescribed by the law. God’s Law. God’s Law before sin corrupted it.

It’s important to note that we have a choice in how we walk. The Spirit & flesh are two opposing spheres of action and each of us needs to choose our allegiance. The mind that is in the Spirit is obedient to God and takes delight in His Law, but the mind of the flesh cannot submit to God’s law. That these are absolute and opposing divisions between the realms of Christ/Spirit, and Adam/Flesh is a given.

It is the battle between our flesh and our spirit. There is a war going on! Think about it this way:

Our bodies are like a country, a particular territory. Before the Spirit, our bodies represented a territory that was wrongfully held by sin. (Remember when we talked about being captive to sin?). When we are baptized by the Spirit and claim Christ as our savior, we have been reclaimed by God (God is the one who created us, and rightful owner.)

So, when we walk in the Spirit, we claim our allegiance with Christ, and our bodies are free from the wrongful hold of Sin & Death. We are free to live the life God intends for us to have. Lots of joy, hope and abundance! Just prepare yourself for battle and the victory will be yours!

Battle? War? Yup! In every battle, in every war there are rules of engagement and as you venture into this spiritual war, you’ll want to understand a couple of terms:

  1. Representative Combat (military folk will recognize this strategy) – This is when a soldier or warrior is chosen from each side to duke it out for the armies. A representative champion. Think David (Israelites) and Goliath (Philistines). Who is our representative champion, you ask: Jesus Christ! Jesus condemned sin in the flesh, so we who are “in Christ” share in this victory.
  2. Personal Holiness – We need to stress the importance of personal holiness as a weapon against Sin & Death. Personal holiness functions as a weapon against unrighteousness. Think Gideon (Judges 6, 7).

It is not World War II, it is not the Viet Nam War, it is not Desert Storm, it is not a war in the way we naturally understand it, but it is a battle, and the most important battle each and everyone one of us will have to fight. I want to encourage you press in and keep working on walking according to the spirit and not the flesh. This is a Holy War for your soul!

When we walk the walk and are led by the spirit, we become children of God. Remember the exodus from Egypt: The Israelites were freed from slavery and led through the wilderness by God.

In the same way, as children of God we are led by the spirit. Not a spirit of slavery and fear, but spirit of adoption into the family of God. Our battle cry is “Abba Father” as we claim our adoption into Christ at our baptism – we are children of God, and we have an inheritance.

Just as Israel came out of Egypt, we come out of the slavery of Sin & Death. We go down to the waters that separate us from slavery to sin, dying and rising with Christ in baptism. In the power of the resurrection of Christ, we are given the spirit of Christ and become heirs of God and joint heirs of Christ, if in fact, we suffer with Him.

Whoa! Suffer? What? Yes, that is what I said. Suffering with Him is a sign of our affiliation with Christ, and our participation in the birth pangs of the new creation inaugurated by His death and resurrection reflects the “growing pains” we suffer through when we become a new creation in Christ.

As we continue our walk in the spirit, may we always glorify God! In the words of Dr. Robert Cook: “Walk with the King today and be a blessing!”