If you’ve been in the church for any length of time, as I have growing up hearing sermons and Bible teaching all my life, you get familiar with lots of biblical phrases that, though you may have a vague understanding of their meaning, perhaps have never had them well defined in your mind. Yet we can read and use these phrases without thinking deeply about what they mean. A few years ago, I began contemplating more deeply the meaning of “walk by the Spirit.”
What in the world does it mean to “walk by the Spirit”? What does it look like when I do walk by the Spirit?
In scripture, the word “Walk” is often used to indicate our lifestyle, the way we live our lives. For example, read this familiar psalm: “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers” (Psalm 1:1 NIV, emphasis added). It is clear that words of everyday activity—walk, stand, sit—things most of us do every day, are used to depict spiritual activities as well as physical realities.
The word Walk is often used interchangeably with Live; so then, to say “walk by the Spirit” is the same as saying “live by the Spirit.” So, what is walking or living by the Spirit?
Psalm 1 verse 1 tells us what we should not do and verse 2 gives us a pretty obvious clue of what we should do, a straight-out statement, in fact, as to our responsibility in walking by or in the Spirit. Not only are we not living like those around us (v.1), but we are one of those “whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.”
This love of the Word of God undergirds our life-walk, our lifestyle in the Spirit. And of course, love of the word of God both flows from and results in love of the God who spoke those words. This is the crux of the matter of our lifestyle: love of God.
36 “‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’”
37 “Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’.”
If we focused on those two commands, especially loving God with all we are, we’d be walking in the Spirit. To help us in our endeavor to walk in the Spirit, there are things we can do to cooperate with God’s Spirit as he seeks to teach and help us.
More thoughts on that in the next blog post. In the meantime, we could spend some time thinking about being someone who delights in and meditates on God’s Word—where would that lead us? And what it means to keep Jesus’ commands, especially the greatest commands: loving God above all else and loving others.
Where would that lead us?
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash.