Page 60 - Personal Spiritual Life Syllabus w videos

Study Section 10: Walking in the Spirit – The Fruit of the Spirit
Spiritual Gifts

10.1 Connect.

Years ago I took a several hundred question test to tell me what spiritual gift I had. It
took quite a while to answer all the questions. Turns out, I did not have the spiritual gift
of “patience.” Later I learned that “patience” is a fruit of the Spirit, not a spiritual gift!
Anyway, I discovered that I had only one strong gift, that of teaching, and another one
which was weaker, that of administration. I got a zero grade on mercy.

Is that how God wants us to find out what our spiritual gift is - take a test? And do we have more than
one? What are we supposed to do with these gifts? Why did God give special gifts to each believer?
Today we are not only going to study about walking with God, but also serving Him using our special gift
given to us when we accepted Christ. I’m excited! How about you?

10.2 Objectives:

1. The student should be able to explain what it means to walk in the Spirit.

2. The student should be able to explain that walking in the Spirit produces special fruit in
our lives called the Fruit of the Spirit.

3. The student should be able to describe the various gifts that God gives believers for the purpose of
edifying other believers. We will also learn how we can find out what our gift may be.

10.3 Walking in the Spirit

Galatians 5:25 tells us as believers to “walk in the Spirit”. Let’s see if we can figure out
what that means.

Galatians 5:25If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

Paul is in full agreement with Jesus that it is by the work of the Holy Spirit that we have
been given new life. “Even when we were dead through trespasses God made us alive together with
Christ . . . We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:5, 10; Colossians 2:13). Just as
God once said, “Let there be light,” and there was light, so he “has shone in our hearts to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

Now Paul, in Galatians 5:25, draws an inference from how our new life in Christ began: if it began by the
Spirit, then all our subsequent life ought to be carried out by the Spirit (see Galatians 3:1–5). If it was by
the free and sovereign power of the Spirit that our new spiritual life came into being, then the way that
new life should be lived is by that same free and sovereign power.

Definition: “Walk by the Spirit” means do what you do each day by the Spirit; live your life in all its
details from waking up in the morning until going to sleep at night by the enabling power of the Spirit.

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