Taking that First Step // Walking in the Spirit, Part 1

So many people wish that they could say they’re living their lives by walking in the Spirit. But that’s not really how their life works at all. In fact God often seems a million miles away. Well, there’s a reason for that – it comes down, as it turns out, to a question of priorities.

 

DECIDING WHAT'S IMPORTANT

Today we are kicking off a new series that’s called ‘Walking in the Spirit’. Now that’s a phrase that might get some mixed reactions. Many Christians will have heard it and it speaks of walking along the path of life in the Spirit of God – the Holy Spirit – with the Spirit guiding us, encouraging us, comforting us. But equally, many who fall into that group, who call themselves Christians – as much as they have heard that phrase, ‘Walking in the Spirit’, they really haven’t experienced it in their own lives.

It’s like, “Well, other people may well walk in the Spirit and maybe it’s for Mr or Mrs Super-Christian over there but it seems that it’s never going to happen for me”. And to those who perhaps haven’t yet given their lives over to Jesus, it may all sound a little bit weird – ‘Walking in the Spirit’. Really?

So, over the next few weeks on the programme, I’m hoping that you and I will be able to spend some time together just unpacking this idea of ‘Walking in the Spirit’, because as I am discovering, day by day in my life, it’s a fantastic way to live life. And life is something we live, breath-by-breath, minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour. Not just on some super-spiritual plane, not kind of riding around on cloud nine with the angels, but down here on the dusty roads of this earth; along the highways and the byways of life; over hill and dale.

And the thing that people often find difficult is living out their relationship with God in the reality of their lives. It’s not easy sometimes. This idea of walking in the Spirit might sound wonderful, but how do you actually live your life, day by day, immersed in the Spirit of God – guided by Him, knowing His healing touch and His love in the middle of conflict and strife and busyness and all the stuff we go through in life.

I guess it’s that very thing I would like to explore with you over the coming weeks. Interesting, just over the last few weeks in my life, things have been so incredibly busy and so what’s been happening in my walk with the Lord is that, well, my quiet times with Him, instead of being unhurried in the still of the morning, as they usually are, I just haven’t had those times. My times of prayer have been short and fragmented – often because I’m up early, getting ready to speak at a Men’s Breakfast or whatever.

And whilst it’s been a season of just a few weeks, here’s what I find. It’s so easy to get caught up in the busyness of doing life, doing things for God, doing this, doing that, and what happens is you lose sight of the God who loves you; the Spirit of God who dwells in you. And I get all caught up in busyness. Do you find that too? My hunch is, most of us do.

The sad thing is when that way of life becomes a lifestyle. The sad thing is when people who love Jesus and believe in Him allow themselves to get so busy that they find their time with God is somehow squeezed out of their schedule. And before you know it, God seems like He is a million miles away. Of course, He’s not really, but our fellowship with Him has been interrupted; our relationship with Him becomes fragmented and that’s why it feels as though God is a million miles away.

Now the knock on effect of that on our lives, is that we start imagining that all the doing we have to do, all the striving to achieve that we are involved in, that that is the most important thing in life. So we peddle harder and harder and we start to feel exhausted – spiritually, emotionally, physically … And this is a great time for the devil to start attacking us; it is a great time for us to start worrying about things and getting depressed about things. It’s like this downward spiral and many, many a person who loves Jesus is living their life that way – down somewhere in that dark, deep hole.

So the other morning as I finally arrived back home, I went back to my usual pattern of spending time with the Lord, in the still of the morning when everyone else is still in bed. So many issues were playing on my mind, so many pressures, so many things to pray about, so many things to distract me in my quiet time. And I opened my Bible to pick up where I had left off last time and I found myself in Philippians chapter 3 and as is so often the case, I found the salve to soothe a battered soul.

It’s the Apostle Paul writing about this very issue, about where we put our confidence; about deciding what’s really important in life. He writes a stern warning about putting our confidence in who we are and what we do – making the point