26 Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. Ezekiel 36:26-27 (NASB)
Undoubtedly, there is much confusion about the subject of walking in the Spirit. To some it speaks of the Charismatic movement….
Others avoid the subject like the plague because they believe it leads to some form of Christian mysticism. However, many believers have found that walking in the Spirit or walking according to the Spirit leads them to a life of deeper devotion to their Lord resulting in more joy and fulfillment than they ever thought possible.
3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, 7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. 10 If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. Romans 8:3-11 (NASB)
That passage along with the one I placed at the beginning of this post (Ezekiel 36:26-27) tells us that all regenerated believers have been changed in a dramatic way by their salvation. Was it the sinners who were saved by grace through faith who changed themselves or did God change them? God removes the heart of stone from those He saves and replaces it with a heart of flesh. He puts His Spirit within them. And He causes them to walk in His statutes and to be careful to obey His rules. Many of you, after reading that, anguished as you looked closely at your own walk. What’s wrong? Why don’t believers actually walk in victory as God says His people will in Ezekiel 36:26-27?