October 16, 2024

Passage Read: Galatians 5-6
Meditation Verses: 5:18-24

Thought

The war we're in is not a war between the Law and the Spirit, but between the flesh and the Spirit, and the battleground is our moral behavior. It is not a war of circumcision or holy days or animal sacrifices, but one of godly or selfish behavior. Fulfilling the material requirements of the law will not save, but rather will separate us from Christ. Rather, we're either still in the grip of fleshly passions and worldly concerns, or we've been freed from that to walk in the ways of the Spirit, which of course are the ways of God. And the contrast Paul gives is a moral one, all kinds of immortality versus love, joy, peace and the like. Those who belong to Christ have crucified their fleshly passions.

Application

If I have truly come to Christ and belong to Him, I have not simply laid aside my fleshly desires and passions, but I've crucified my flesh, in which dwells all these contrary desires and passions. My goal has nothing to do with outward appearances, but with walking in the ways of God, in step with the Spirit. It is about changed behavior, but one that flows from crucifying the flesh and pursuing the Spirit, that results in abandoning the desires and passions of the flesh and living in the desires and passions of the Spirit. All the more I need not merely forgo the desires and passions of my flesh, but crucify them or see them as crucified, and focus on the goals and purposes of the Spirit of God and live for those things. I don't so much need to set my mind on the things of the flesh, to fight against them, but I need to set my mind on the things of the Spirit, to delight in them and walk in them.