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discerning the spirits, encouragement, experience, faith, following Jesus, gospel, grace, knowing God, sanctification, T.A. Sparks, the heavenlies, thought life, walking after the flesh, walking by the spirit
It was only yesterday in the evening as I was occupied with tidying up the living room when I asked myself this question, “When should I walk in the Spirit?” to which God’s immediate response was, “Now!” Honestly, that gave me a pause. 🙄 Although I recalled having prayed quick prayers when I was busy with similar mundane activities before, I rather thought about walking by the spirit whenever I was confronted with decisions of any kind as to what and how to do something. That means in particular, when I left the house I asked God about leading me. When I had to write emails or to do some phone calls, I asked Him to show me what to say and to give me His wisdom in all things. And I really thought that was enough. But no, it was not!
What I have been learning since yesterday is the simple fact that walking by the spirit is not about doing this or that according to His will only. Instead, it is about changing our whole perspective, or even more, about leaving this earthly realm with its worries, sorrows, fears, and reasonings by focusing on Him who already lives in the heavenlies. Hmm… Makes sense, I thought, but how can I do this when I am already distracted and burdened, too weak or too tired to pray to Him until I finally get there? 🙄
Two thoughts just came to my mind. The first one was a line from a pop song by Yazz. I cannot say I liked that song, nor could I remember the lyrics except for the refrain that says, “The only way is up”, a line I keep hearing continuously in my mind like an ear-worm. Have you noticed that we never get that far when we try to solve our problems on a mere horizontal level by thinking what we always thought and doing what our old habits tell us to? That does not mean we cannot solve problems at all, however, if we want to have some divine input we need to get off the beaten track.
The second thought was a Scripture I was reminded of that reads,
“If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.” (Gal 5:25 ESV)
It seems to me this verse has a much deeper meaning than it might be evident at first sight. Question: “How can we keep in step with the Spirit if we do not live by Him?” 🤔 “Wait a moment, wait a moment, Susanne. We have been born again, we believe in Jesus who is our Lord, therefore we live and can follow the Holy Spirit anytime.” – Susanne: “Okay, okay. If we live together with someone whom we love and know, will they give us an answer when we raise a question?” – “For sure!” you might say.
But is it the same with God for us? If we ask Him something NOW, do we always expect AND get an answer from Him – or rather not? Or not that clearly, at least… 🙄 What might be the reason for our insecurity here? Do we really KNOW God? Can we believe that He truly wants to share His life with us 24/7?
Yes, I wanted to challenge us all here! In addition I offer you now a thought-provoking excerpt from T. Austin Sparks below.
A Positive Walk
Now, this law of the Spirit is the principle of the walk of the Christian. The walk of the Christian is supposed to be a walk in sanctification; there must be a sanctified walk. That is what it means to walk in the Spirit. The definite statement is: “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). Are you struggling, striving, fighting, not to fulfil the flesh? That is negative; you will get nowhere along that line. The way not to is to do something positive. The positive is the answer to the negative. “Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not…”. It is a great principle of deliverance. God’s way is always a positive way. We are occupied so much with the negative, striving and wrestling not to do this, to stop this and that. And we do not find that we get very far in that, do we? The provision of the Lord is: “Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not…”.
What does it mean to walk in the Spirit? Well, it means to consort with the Spirit. You say, what does that mean? It is best understood by recognizing what we do. We, by nature, consort with the flesh: we are all the time consorting with ourselves – our poor miserable selves; occupied with ourselves, talking about ourselves, praying about ourselves; keeping ourselves, our miserable selves always in front of us. When we are so continually occupied with what we are in ourselves, that is consorting with ourselves, is it not? How far do we get that way? Nowhere at all! We make no progress at all by consorting with ourselves.
And I am afraid there are some Christians who consort with the devil. It is not always easy to distinguish between ourselves and the devil, but you know he is always talking to us through ourselves. If there is something that is wrong with us, he lets us know it. If there is something that troubles us, he adds to the trouble, he accentuates. Give him a little bit of his own ground, that he himself created for himself – for he created that ground of the old fallen Adam for himself and for his own purposes, to work out his own designs – give him a little bit of that which he has made for himself, and see what he will do with it. He will make everything of it, and it will not be long before people who do that will find that they are in terrible bondage to the devil through their own selves – their own make-up and faults and weaknesses and sinfulness. And that is consorting with the devil. He comes and accuses, and you listen; he makes a suggestion, and you take it on – you almost enter into a discussion with him. You consort with him, or you consort with yourself: and that is walking after the flesh.
Don’t consort with the flesh, don’t consort with the devil, have no truck with them at all! Consort with the Spirit! The Spirit is the One who has come alongside: the very meaning of His Name, ‘Advocate’ or ‘Comforter’ (Gk. parakletes) is One who is called alongside. Consort with the One alongside. Have your communion with the Spirit. Challenge yourself, and challenge the enemy, on this: Is this really of the Spirit, does this correspond to the Word of God, is this true according to the gospel of grace? If the answer is: No, of course it is not! then repudiate it! That is consorting with the Spirit, always moving on the ground of grace, the Spirit of grace.
That is a very simple beginning, but it indicates that the Holy Spirit is positive. All that other is negative: it is pulling back, it is draining, dragging; it is all a big ‘No’. The Spirit never comes on that ground; He is against anything like that. As in the first creation He moved against the void, so in the new creation He has nothing to do with, and no interest in, vacuums, voids, or anything that is negative. Take positive ground, and you will find the Holy Spirit is with you. Forsake your negative ground in your spiritual life.
https://www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/000763.html
All images © Susanne Schuberth 2021 – Except for the picture of the three sheep all photos were edited with the Huawei App for Leica
Entering the Promised Land 
Dear Susanne,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences with us about walking by the Spirit. Your opening sentence caught my attention,
“It was only yesterday in the evening as I was occupied with tidying up the living room when I asked myself this question, “When should I walk in the Spirit?” to which God’s immediate response was, “Now!”
As usual God is a “man of few words,” but oh, how full those words are when the Spirit gives us His light. “Now.” Of coarse, now, He is the great I AM, not the “I Will Be” or the “I Was.” His Spirit is always there waiting for us to walk in His light every moment of every day as He makes our paths straight. We have all read the verse that says,
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” (2Tim 3:16, ESV2011)
Yet, we dissect the scriptures into little pieces that are either for someone else or for a different time or different place but the buck rarely stops with us in the here and now unless it says what WE want to hear! God has shown me over the years that He wants me to apply ALL scripture to my own walk with the Lord (or lack thereof), thus I was open to seeing the value of each portion of the Bible to the daily upward call of the Lord in my life.
As I read your blog I was reminded of what Spirit said to John in the Book of Revelation.
“Come up here!” John had just been shown the earthly church and all its failings, the worse and final one being the lukewarm church of Laodicea who said of herself, “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.” Self-centered, self sufficient with no need of Christ and His Spirit to lead them. This is the very way the churches of the western world are today!
So it was after this that John was called from looking at Jesus knocking outside the churches closed doors (see verse 3:20) that we read,
“After these things I beheld, and, lo! a door was opened in heaven, and a voice, the first which I heard, as of a trumpet, speaking to me, said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee what things will be after these.” (Rev 4:1, Haweis)
The book starts out with, “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place…” (Rev 1:1, ESV2011)
Once again, this is a word for the here and now! Him knocking at the fleshly self-sufficient closed doors of our hearts ends if we repent and open unto Him. It is then that our hearts are open and we hear Him calling “Come up here!” We are drawn to join Him at His thrown and it is here that we start seeing those things that come after each moment of our daily walks as He reveals His will to us.
Oh, Father, may we all be not only hears of the Word, but doers also. Amen.
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You are welcome, Michael. Indeed, I also thought in this case God was a “MAN of VERY few words”. 😀
Just as it was for you while reading only the beginning of my blog, it was for me as I reached the end of your comment. God inspires us whenever and how He wills which is for us most of the time not logical.
You wrote,
“We are drawn to join Him at His throne and it is here that we start seeing those things that come after each moment of our daily walks as He reveals His will to us.”
That really spoke to me, what an unexpected revelation, my brother. 🙏🏼🕊️ Thank you for sharing! 😇
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Susanne, my dear sister, it is wonderful to hear this. Your are so welcome. When I write I never know what He will use to touch others. All I can do is listen and share and it is always a gamble that my flesh might try and add to what God is saying. It is always blessed by Him when we walk moment by moment in the Spirit.
He makes us to have hind’s feet on high places. ⭐ ❤
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Michael, I think it is good for us that we do not know whether our words touch others or not. The ways of the Lord are truly past finding out.
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Rom 11:33 ESV)
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I see your point. Yes His ways are inscrutable for sure. His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are above our thoughts. We truly have to wait for HIM to speak and lead us accordingly. You are an encouraging example in these things. ⭐
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Yes, I thought of Isaiah, too. 👍🏼
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Susanne, as I said above, the Spirit has gone on to speak to me even further about what He was showing you regarding our “Now God.” As I meditated on what you wrote, I was reminded of this passage in Hebrews chapter four that says if we are to walk by faith in His rest, we must do it TODAY, that is to say in the moment we are living in.
“Let us therefore fear, lest, although a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them… For we who have believed do enter into rest… For he spoke in a certain place of the seventh day in this way, ‘And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.’ And in this place again, ‘They shall not enter into my rest.’ Seeing therefore it remains that some must enter into it, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief: Again, he limits a certain day, saying in David, ‘Today, after so long a time… Today if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts”… There remains therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also has ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.” (Heb 4:1-11, KJ2000).
This is amazing. Here we see that we must enter into His rest if we are to walk by faith and not be governed by our works. But that rest is always in the NOW. “Today, if you will hear His voice and not harden our hearts” against Him as He speaks to us, dead set on doing our own works. Does this mean that we are not to do our daily tasks as you were doing in your living room that day? No, but we should remain focused on Him and what He might say as we do them, just as you did.
Jesus totally walked in the Sabbath (seventh day rest) of His Father He did the works that He saw His Father doing and spoke what the Father gave Him to say for these works and words were foreordained from the foundation of the world. Jesus is our Pattern Son, the pattern for all of us who would walk by faith in obedience to the Spirit of God. Today, in the here and Now, in every waking moment, we are to seek to do His will. This is what it means to walk by faith.
“Therefore when he comes into the world, he says, ‘Sacrifice and offering you desired not, but a body have you prepared me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do your will, O God.’ Above when he said, ‘Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin you desired not, neither had pleasure in them;’ which are offered by the law; Then said he, ‘Lo, I come to do your will, O God.’ He takes away the first, that he may establish the second.” (Heb 10:5-9, KJ2000).
So much of what we do is out of a since of duty… “I have to get this done today.” This is so strong in many of us that we fail to listen to and obey what HE would have us do. I think if we will only enter into HIS rest in our lives He will make sure that the things that need to get done will be done by His grace and not because we are driven by the law, duty bound in our own minds.
“When should I walk in the Spirit?” to which God’s immediate response was, ‘Now!’”
Thank you once again, dear sister, for listening to our Father and sharing with us what He has been showing and saying to you. The Spirit bears witness in our hearts that they are from Him. Good stuff, my dear sister. You are a gift from our Daddy for sure. ⭐
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You are welcome, my brother. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, too.
To be honest, for me it was more simple as I understood God’s “Now!” as to walking in the Spirit a bit differently. This time it was not so much about the here and now but about the ALWAYS since I had been convinced there might be some tiny and unimportant areas of life where walking by the spirit would not be necessary, or even impossible.
I saw that sometimes it is only about praying in the spirit (see Eph 6:18), esp. when we have nothing to do. God wanted to tell me through this NOW that I should walk in the heavenlies with Him continually whether I do something on earth or not. Just as you often say, Michael, “In Him we move and have our being, not our doing!” And of course, God Himself must enable us to walk there with Him because without Him we can do NOTHING!
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Thank you for this teaching, Susanne. I, also, like the verse: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom. 12: 1). That elevates all we do.
With love,
A. ❤
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You are very welcome, Anna. I need to admit that I have not yet fully grasped the depth of Romans, chapter 12, verse 1. It seems to me that there is more than meets the eye. But as this verse also points back to the mercies of God, I am waiting for these to see what is truly meant here. To me, at first sight spiritual worship and the physical body do not really appear to fit together as the body is considered already dead because of sin (cf. Rom 8:10). 🙄
With love,
Susanne ❤
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