Gal 5:16,17 Walk by the Spirit

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Walk by the Spirit

Gal 5:16,17  So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.  For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.

The "sinful nature" is contained in the body of flesh into which we are born which provokes us to sin. Paul describes his own struggle with his sinful nature in Romans 7 where he personifies the sinful nature as he does here speaking of it as having its own desires contrary to the Spirit which lives in us, and we are caught in between the two constantly struggling to chose one over the other. Consequently good intentions are not always translated into perfectly good actions, and in everything we do sin is not absent, as Paul said, "I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do— this I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it." Rom 7:18-20

However, by walking in the Spirit we will not fulfil all that the sinful nature desires. The word "gratify" is the word "teleo" which is "to finish". Thus the sinful nature is kept in check by walking in accordance with and submission to the Spirit.

The Berean Christian Bible Study Resources

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