walking in the Spirit

Being in the Spirit
1/28/09
I’ve been having a quiet time with the Lord and He was speaking to me about Romans chapter 8. One thing He pointed out was that the walk of the Spirit is one in which a person’s mind is controlled by the Spirit. “Those who live according to the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires” (vs 5). Since our own nature does not understand the thoughts from God, it rejects them (Rom 8:7 & 1 Cor 3:14). The key is to wait on God for understanding of His thoughts, brought by His Spirit. So we must have a victory over our tendency to “think our own thoughts” in order to walk in the Spirit.
The Lord then spoke about “hidden manna”, or those thoughts that are spiritual food. In Revelation 2:17 it is mentioned as a gift to those who overcome the teaching of Balaam and of the Nicolaitans. In short words, the Balaamites taught that it was OK to compromise with the world, and so they had a worldliness in their lives not consistent with the gospel. The Nicolaitans taught that it was OK to be spiritually and physically immoral. They did not rid their lives of idols, and so their lives also had sin in them.
We have the holy scriptures and are privileged more than any other people to know God’s ways. By causing our minds to submit to the scriptures first, we will find that our obedience changes our way of thinking. Our minds will be full of “life and peace” (Rm 8:6). This is the foundation for overcoming the habit of having our own thoughts and living in our own understanding. It is painful putting to death by the Spirit the ways of our own heart and mind, but is rewarded by receiving God’s spiritual food for us; hidden manna. Hidden manna, or thoughts from God, are what we are seeking.
Our enemy wants us to believe that putting to death our fleshly way of thinking has no reward. He tells us that God doesn’t speak to us and things will always remain as they were. He wants to drive us away from the Spirit and back into the comfort of thinking our own familiar thoughts. After all, putting to death the flesh is painful. But what satan tells us is a lie, for the scriptures say that when we come to God we must believe that He exists and is a rewarder of those who earnestly seek Him (Heb 11:6). God will reward us with His thoughts, His views on the matter we are asking about. Let us press in to God today and wait to hear from Him, for that is truly following and walking in the Spirit.