Romans 8:4. What Pleases God is Walking By the Spirit

Romans 8:4

New English Translation

4 so that the righteous requirement of the law may be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

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Background:  Up to this point, Paul desires to assure all believers that there is no more condemnation over our heads.  We are totally freed from the reign of Sin because the Spirit of Christ lives in us.  

We have the laws of God from the Scripture.  But following them in our own power does not work.  We, of our own power, cannot live up to obeying any law of God.  No matter how hard we try, we cannot overcome sin, overcome our selfishness, be a better family member, be a better Christian at church or the workplace, etc.  

Paul drives us to a point so that we will believe, WE CANNOT please God without the aid of the Holy Spirit.  

Chapter 8 tells us that and how to do it.

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Christians can walk in the flesh 

or in the Spirit 

but cannot live in the flesh very long.  

Why?

1. The flesh [the reigning Sin power] was crucified with Christ.
2. The flesh cannot control us unless we give it permission
3. When we do give in, our conscience is stricken by the Spirit to repent
4. It is a miserable life to live in the flesh.  
5. Those who find comfort in continual life in the flesh are not the sons of God.  This will be presented by Scripture in lessons to come.
6. Christians do get in the flesh.  All of us do.  But no real Christian can live in it.  Verse 9 says we are in the Spirt, not in the flesh.  Our life is defined as practicing walking with the Spirit of God
7. But we can momentarily fall into it.
8. Flesh is the "bentness" of the human soul and body to the things of this world.  We are weak about many things.  Our human flesh [more than just the physical body, but the desires, feelings, and lines of thought which corrupt us] pulls on us to depart from God to serve Sin's desire.

We please God, we satisfy the law of the Spirit by listening to Him upon each challenge by circumstances.  It is not keeping the laws of not...or doing...  We cannot stop sins.  We cannot change behavior.

But we can walk by the Spirit.  The coming lessons will explain this.  But for now, we must understand what works and what does not work.  We prove we are saved because we are in the Spirit.  We, who are in the Spirit, hear the Spirit.  Therefore, we must listen and walk by what He says when we listen.

One proof we are sons of God is that we have God's desires within us.  Those desires are to please Him even over ourselves, at most of the time. At times, Sin sneaks in and desire changes to pleasing ourselves.  That feeling, though wrong is not sin.  But when we gratify the feeling of sin, we yield to the flesh.

Trying on our own to please God sounds noble.  Being positive, managing anger, staying aloof from immorality, etc. is noble.  But we cannot succeed without walking by the Spirit.

This sounds complicated.  It isn't.  We will explain this in verses to come.

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The sovereign God wants to be loved for 

Himself and honored for Himself, 

but that is only part of what He wants. 

 

The other part is that He wants us to know 

that when we have Him we have 

everything – we have all the rest. 

A. W. Tozer