Who Does the Ordering in Your Life?

“If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25). The apostle Paul gives us this very simple instruction in plain terms, “If the Holy Spirit is living in you, let him have full control of your life.”

We are all to be led by the Spirit. He was sent to be our constant, infallible guide, and he abides in all who confess Christ as Lord and Savior. Most Christians have no trouble accepting that the Holy Spirit leads us to Jesus, and we have no problem believing that the Spirit is continually at work in us at every moment.

We give honor to the Spirit, we preach about him, we teach on his gifts and fruit, and most of us have called on him for comfort in times of crisis. We pray to him, seek, him, beseech him to rend the heavens and revive his church, and experience genuine manifestations of his indwelling. But it seems we know very little about what it means to walk in the Spirit.

Understanding the truth about walking in the Spirit could deliver many from confusion, strife, distress, indecision, even lusts of the flesh. So, what is this truth? Paul has summed it up clearly: Surrender your will to the Holy Spirit and trust his still, small voice to direct you in all things. In fact, the Word of God says, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord” (Psalm 37:23). And who does the ordering? The Holy Spirit!

The flesh has its own stubborn will and acts as it pleases. It does whatever it chooses and then asks God to bless those choices, declaring, “God gave me a sound mind and I can make intelligent choices. I don’t have to wait on him for direction.” But even Christ himself said, “I can of Myself do nothing … because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me” (John 5:30). Just as Jesus waited on the Father, always seeking to have his mind, we are to follow his perfect example.