As I grow older, I am aware that I struggle to keep up. Children often struggle to keep up with their parents as they walk hurriedly along. Their short legs have to work twice as fast to keep up with their parents’ longer strides. As I grow older, I struggle to keep up with the work pace of others. My stamina is not what it once was.
It seems to me that those of us who are the followers of Jesus struggle to keep up with the Spirit.
The Apostle Paul began his great text on life in the Spirit (Galatians 5:16—26) with the admonition “live by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16). He ended it with the admonition “keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25 NIV).
His admonition “live by the Spirit” was a call to embrace a new way of living.
We naturally live out of our anxiety driven, self-indulgent default nature—what Paul called “the flesh.” We seek to manage the inclinations of this default nature by adopting and conforming to some religious or societal standard of expectations—what Paul called “the law.” Neither of these two approaches empowers us to “love your neighbor as yourself”—what Paul identified as the whole law in a nutshell (Galatians 5:14). In fact, both of these approaches to life end up in conflicted, broken relationships. This reality runs throughout Paul’s thoughts on life in the Spirit. He began with it: “If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another” (Galatians 5:15). And he ended with it: “Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another” (Galatians 5:26). Conflicted, broken relationships dominate the works of the flesh he identified (Galatians 5:19—20).
Living by the Spirit, on the other hand, leads us to love as Jesus loved. “By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love” (Galatians 5:22). Love is the first of the nine traits Paul identified as the fruit of the Spirit. To be able to love as Jesus loved is the goal of the Spirit’s work within us. The Spirit leads us and empowers us to be patient, kind, generous, faithful, and gentle—that is, to love as Jesus loved.
The Spirit teaches us the ways of God Jesus taught (John 14:25—26; 16:12—15). The Spirit teaches us the ways of grace and forgiveness, of seeing and embracing every person as a beloved child of God, of using power to serve. We cannot live God’s ways until we know them. The Spirit teaches us God’s ways.
The Spirit also guides us in living God’s ways. The Spirit nudges us with the truth we know. The Spirit leads us beyond merit-based thinking that deals in deserving, calling us to relate out of grace and forgiveness. The Spirit confronts our us-them thinking that sees those who are different as “other,” calling us to see and embrace them as a brother or sister (Acts 10:28, 34—35, 44—48). The Spirit challenges the what’s-in-it-for-me orientation of our default nature, calling us to use our power to respond to the needs of others (Galatians 5:17).
The Spirit confronts those things within us that keep us from living the ways of God (Acts 10:9—16). The truth of God we know exposes what is in our hearts—our attitudes toward others, harbored anger and resentment, rigid, judgmental thinking, fear, etc. The Spirit works to cleanse our hearts, ingraining the character of God within.
The Spirit empowers us to live the ways of God. The Spirit’s work of teaching, guiding, and cleansing us culminates in the Spirit empowering us to do what we cannot do in our own strength. The Spirit empowers us to love as Jesus loved, to love those whom Jesus loved.
Which brings us to Paul’s closing admonition: “keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25 NIV). His admonition highlights our role in this divine dance. We consciously choose to follow the Spirit’s lead. We keep up with what the Spirit is teaching us. We keep up with where the Spirit is nudging us to put that truth into practice. We keep up as the Spirit shines the light of God’s truth on what is in our hearts. We keep up as the Spirit calls us to offer to God what is in our hearts so that God can cleanse and heal it. As we keep up with the Spirit, the Spirit empowers us to do what we cannot do in our own strength.
If we keep up with the Spirit, we will love as Jesus loved. We will love those whom Jesus loved.
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