Doing What You Really Want

Does The Holy Spirit Keep You From Doing What You Really Want?

Galatians 5:16-17 (KJV) 16  This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. 17  For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

Does, “ye cannot do the things that ye would” mean that the Holy Spirit is keeping us from committing sins that we truly want to commit?

If the Holy Spirit has to step in and keep us from sinful things we really want to do, then are we and God at odds? Are we like petulant children who want to disobey? Does Father have to override our desires and make us be good?

Are we an obstacle to God or are we instruments compatible with His desires?

Let’s look at a couple of things that scripture says about this. First, Romans 6:17-18 (KJV) 17  But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.

18  Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

So we read about obeying from the heart, but in Jeremiah 17:9-10 (KJV) we find this:

9  The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? 10  I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.

According to Jeremiah, the heart is wicked and deceitful, and God knows it because He searches the heart. Some would refer to this passage and apply it to us as believers, so these two passages appear to disagree with one another. In one, our hearts are wicked and deceitful, and in the other, we obey from the heart.

Ezekiel 36:25-27 (KJV) gives us some insight into this:

25  Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. 26  A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. 27  And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

Romans 6:6-7 (KJV) 6  Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. 7  For he that is dead is freed from sin.

Keeping in mind all this profound change that God has made in us when we were born again, let’s take another look at our text:

Galatians 5:16-17 (KJV) 16  This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. 17  For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

So it appears that there is a conflict. The flesh and the Holy Spirit are at odds. What is the flesh? Is it our physical body?

In Greek there are two words that are translated “flesh.” One of these words is “soma.” Soma means your physical body, your physical substance. That isn’t the word used here. The word translated flesh here is “sarx.” Sarx means flesh well enough, but it does not refer to our physicality. Sarx is more like, our so-called human nature, our worldly, self-effort-based way of dealing with what life throws at us.

The flesh (sarx). In John 3:6 (KJV) Jesus said, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

Jesus is making it very clear that the flesh, is the lineage, the inherited natural state, of those who have not been born again, those who are of the world. He also makes it clear that the Spirit is the lineage, the natural inherited state of those who are born of God.

This is the key point to take away from this discussion. When we are born again, we get a new lineage and we inherit new traits—the traits of the Holy Spirit of God. God gave us a new soft and loving heart, a new spirit, and He placed His Spirit within us. Our former nature is eradicated. Because of these profound changes we do not need to fear what we want.

Think about it. If we did not want what God wants, our life in Christ would be one where we were faking it and acting in a way contrary to our heart’s true desire. It would bring us to a lifestyle of being sinful at the core, yet needing to act righteous and holy for the remaining decades of your life. You don’t want what God wants, so you have to go against yourself for the rest of your life.

I understand this line of thinking very well because I was raised in a church that taught just that.

But what does our text say? Galatians 5:16 (KJV) “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” Our responsibility is not fighting with ourselves, it’s walking in the Spirit. It’s God, by His Spirit in us, who is fighting the flesh. Verse 17 of our text says, “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.”

The Spirit of God does the work because we cannot do it. That’s why the verse concludes that we cannot do the things we want or intend to do. Apart from the Spirit of God, we have no power over sin. He is the source of victory. When we sin, we are going against our true desires.

We must be fully compatible with God, we must be holy and righteous at our core or we cannot be in Christ. In Jesus all the fullness of the godhead dwells bodily. He is the image of the invisible God. This is another way of saying that He is God. One thing we can be sure of is that God is perfect in every way.

If He were not perfect, He would not be God.
Being perfect there is no sin in Him.
It would be impossible for there to be any sin in Him because that would make Him imperfect.

So, when you wonder if you have been completely forgiven and made completely clean from sin, remember this:

You live, and move, and have your being in Christ. (Acts 17:28)
Your life is hid with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3)
God’s Holy Spirit lives in you. (1 Corinthians 3:16)
So united are you with Jesus that He is your life. (Colossians 3:4)
You are one spirit with Him. (1 Corinthians 6:17)

If you are not 100% forgiven and forever pure, then God is not God.

James 1:23-25 (KJV) 23  For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: 24  For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

When we hear that we are to walk by faith, walk in the Spirit, but we then revert to trying to maintain our righteousness by what we do, we are like someone who has forgotten what kind of person he is.

We are spiritual people. We are children of God. We inherit traits from God—that’s what Peter means when he says in, 2 Peter 1:4 (KJV) … ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

Peter also refers to this idea of forgetfulness of who we are in 2 Peter 1:9 (KJV), where we find this: “But he that lacketh these things (increasing spiritual fruit) is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.”

James 1:25  But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

What is this perfect law of liberty? Clearly, it’s not the Law of Moses, because that led the people into bondage. The Mosaic Law was a schoolmaster to show them their sinfulness. Galatians 3:24 (KJV) “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”

The power, or strength of sin is the Law: 1 Corinthians 15:56-57 (KJV) “The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. 57  But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

So here is the law of liberty, the royal law, the law of the spirit (of life in Christ Jesus) that frees us from the law of sin and death.

1 John 3:23-24 (KJV) 23  And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. 24  And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.

So, we are in Christ. We are to walk in the Spirit. This all means that we are compatible with Christ. We are accepted in the beloved, according to Ephesians 1:6 (KJV)

It’s fleshly lusts that war against us, not God. 1 Peter 2:11 (KJV) 11  Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;

If fleshly lusts war against our soul, what does that say about our soul? It must not want what the fleshly lusts want. The holy Spirit doesn’t keep us from committing sins we want to commit. The truth is that the Holy Spirit works with us to inspire us to walk according to our true desires.

 God works in us to “change our want-to.”

Philippians 2:13 (KJV) 13  For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

 So we want what God wants. That’s what our new heart truly desires.

 The issue comes when we are tempted to revert back to walking in the flesh, relying on our senses, walking by sight, rather than walking in the Spirit and walking by faith.

 But thanks be to God, He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world.