It Starts Small

There are three requirements to pursuing godliness. We have looked at salvation being the first requirement. Requirement two is God’s grace and today we look at the final requirement: the Holy Spirit.

When we received Christ as our Savior, we also received the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In our scripture today, Paul is telling us that when we walk by the Holy Spirit, we will overcome everything our flesh desires. Rather than a heart that desires to behave like the world, we desire through the Holy Spirit to live in the standard God gives us.

Let us look at this scripture by looking back a few scriptures before Paul profoundly gives us a promise of the Lord.

¹³ For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. ¹⁴ For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁵ But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

Galatians 5:13-15

In the previous passage, Paul has spoken truth to the Galatian Christians. That truth applies to all Christians. Paul is pleading with us, as believers in Christ, not to waste our freedom in Christ on serving our own flesh, and our own selfish desires. Paul tells those free in Christ to serve each other in love. He is describing a life of self-sacrifice lived out in response to God’s love for us.

Our scripture to look at today is Paul helping us to narrow our vision in on ourselves and He begins to describe how to live in this way. While we studied on how to pursue love, we learned that love is not a naturally occurring behavior we automatically do. Godliness is not a naturally occurring idea or thought to us. We must depend upon the Holy Spirit by not only resisting our own way, we but surrendering to the Holy Spirit to work godliness into us. Without the rules of the law to guide our every decision, how will we use our freedom in Christ to love each other?

Paul zeros in that the only source of power and wisdom beyond ourselves: is the Holy Spirit of God. He revealed earlier in this letter that the Spirit comes to live in the hearts of every one of God’s sons and daughters.

⁶ And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”

Galatians 4:6

Now Paul tells us to use this freedom in Christ to access the power of God’s Spirit in our hearts in our everyday lives. He tells us, literally, to walk, and keep on walking, by the Spirit’s power and guidance. This is a picture of Paul telling us to lay aside our own power and rely on the power of God. We can not fulfill the law by our own effort and in this same way, Paul is telling us to stop trying to do life in our own way. The Spirit if God is in us and available and willing to help us.

I admit, this is a mysterious idea, but it’s also how free people in Christ avoid giving in to the desires of our flesh. Relying upon the Holy Spirit is how we overcome our strong appetites to do what feels good even if that thing is sinful. In the Spirit’s power, we can say no to ourselves.

Today let us look within ourselves and decide today: are we in control or are we going to lay that control down and allow the power of God to guide us and direct us?

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