Keeping In Step

In my younger years I belonged to The Boys’ Brigade. I wasn’t much up to football, but made up the numbers (scoring two goals in my short ‘career’ in the junior section… albeit both of them in the wrong net and in the same match!)… I wasn’t that good at badge work either, though I muddled through. The one thing I did enjoy later on as a teenager, curiously was the drill! Marching up and down and round and round and getting it right seemed to be an achievement for me, especially when we won competitions against other BB companies across Surrey and London. It instilled a sense of achievement in me. Of course, we did have an ex-marine as the drill officer, which helped! – a veteran of D-Day! However, one day he got me to ‘bark out the orders’ for the squad instead, but despite his patience (or not!)  I always seemed to call them on the wrong step and the squad fell out of step as a result!

This verse is in the well-known section of Galatians which details the fruit of the Spirit. Paul has contrasted the life of the ‘sinful nature’ and the life of the Spirit.

‘They are in conflict with each other’ says Paul in Galations 5:17. If we are honest, we can experience this conflict in our daily lives very often! Segun alluded to that in his sermon on Sunday. We may not make a ‘golden calf’ but we all have that same conflict between living God’s way and still wanting to go our own way, the way of the world.

Elsewhere, Paul speaks of us being a ‘new creation, the old has gone, the new has come!’ (2 Corinthians 5:17). The problem is we don’t feel like we are new creations at all! That conflict in us persists. This passage also gives us the well-known ‘list’ of the fruit of the Spirit (Galations 5:22-23).

Lizzie and I pruned our plum tree a little while ago. We are hoping it produces a good crop this year, but that is far from certain. There are many factors that might affect the quality or quantity of fruit we actually see and enjoy eating!

If we are to cultivate good fruit in our lives, then we need to be walking with Jesus daily, in step with the prompting of His Spirit, not doing our own thing or mixing and matching, but totally in step with where He leads. If we are to see His fruit in our lives, then we need to be feeding on His Word and seeking Him in prayer constantly… ‘we are what we eat’ spiritually!

The fruit of the Spirit is the Jesus-like qualities that He wants to grow in us. Instead of holding grudges, he wants us to love as Jesus loved. Instead of living in fear and gloom, he wants us to show the joy that comes from truly knowing Him at work in our lives. Instead of knowing strife and stress, He wants us to know His peace, a peace the world cannot give - John 14:27. Instead of me getting impatient with online passwords and codes that don’t work (as I just did!), He wants us to know patience, especially in relation to other people, after all He is very patient with us! Kindness is reaching out to people even when they don’t deserve it, going the extra mile… Jesus did! Goodness is seeking to think good thoughts and measure our actions against what Jesus would do. Faithfulness is sticking by others and most of all sticking with God, because he always sticks with us! Gentleness is a strong not a weak quality that is seen in Jesus in the way he dealt with others so often. Self-control is not allowing ourselves to give in to wrong desires or attitudes or thoughts but allowing Him to renew us by the transforming our minds (Romans 2 12:2). To crucify something (v 24) is to take drastic action – to kill the wrong desires and to embrace the right ones – to want to live God’s way not the world’s way.

Then we come to the key verse: ‘Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.’

We can ‘lag behind’ unwilling to move on or keep up. We can ‘wander off’ to the right or to the left instead of walking ‘straight’. We can also ‘rush ahead’ thinking we know the way! Yet here we are simply and powerfully told to ‘keep in step’, meaning constantly checking how we are walking spiritually and that we are walking in his footsteps as He gently leads us day by day.

Think about those first disciples. They made all the mistakes. Yet Jesus patiently encouraged them to follow Him and to do things His way, because His way is the only way to truly live.

So it is with us. We would do well to check our steps as we take them, yet continually seeking to step forward, not frozen to the spot, allowing His Spirit to guide us one step at a time, every day.