\u201dIf we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.\u201d \u2014 Gal 5:25<\/p>\n
There is a difference between living and walking. A man chained to a tree in the woods is \u201cliving in the woods\u201d but he certainly is not \u201cwalking in the woods!\u201d Like wise, we can be living in the Spirit but not walking by the Spirit. How can this be? Once a person is saved, he is living in the Spirit. The Spirit of God dwells in him. The Spirit of God wants to direct his paths. However, that same individual may not want to be led by the Spirit. Does that detract from his salvation? Certainly not. That person\u2019s salvation is very real. So what\u2019s the big deal? Here\u2019s where the difference lies. The man who walks by the Spirit not only lives but lives out his convictions. He allows the Spirit to direct his paths.<\/p>\n
For example, King Saul was living in the Spirit. God had chosen him to be king, and king he was. He was known to prophesy. He did some pretty powerful things. And, for a while he followed the leading of the Spirit\u2019s voice in Samuel. But, when things didn\u2019t go Saul\u2019s way, he choose to do things himself. He offered sacrifice without authorization. He failed to destroy the enemy and all the enemy\u2019s possessions when ordered. Even after the prophet declared that God\u2019s Spirit had left him for another, Saul remained king for many years.<\/p>\n
David, by contrast, was a man who walked by the Spirit. He received the same anointing as Saul. He ruled for the same number of years as Saul (40), but his life was totally different. Seldom did he do \u201chis own thing.\u201d AND when he did, he was quick to seek God\u2019s forgiveness and punishment then move on with his walk. In the end, Saul was a failure, David was a \u201cman after God\u2019s own heart.\u201d Saul was still ranked among the great kings of Israel, but he will never hold the rank that David held as the greatest king of Israel \u2014 all because the talk and the walk didn\u2019t match up \u2014 Saul lived in the Spirit, David walked by the Spirit.<\/p>\n
Paul admonishes us to live the talk. We must never fall into the habit of simply \u201cbeing a Christian.\u201d No, we must not only \u201cbe,\u201d but we must also \u201clive\u201d the life of a Christian. We do that by walking by the Spirit \u2014 lead by Him into the deep, exciting, victorious ways of God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201dIf we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.\u201d \u2014 Gal 5:25 There is a difference between living and walking. A man chained to a tree in the woods is \u201cliving in the woods\u201d but he certainly is not \u201cwalking in the woods!\u201d Like wise, we can be living in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2136,1822,2137],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7422"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}