Jeremiah Knight, June 24, 2026
There is a phrase that appears in Paul’s letters that believers use constantly without always understanding what it means. Walking by the Holy Spirit. We speak of it as the goal of the Christian life, the antidote to sin, the secret to victory over the flesh, and yet many of us would struggle to explain in concrete terms what it actually involves in the daily reality of our lives. The phrase has become a kind of spiritual shorthand that we repeat without unpacking, and the lack of clarity has left many believers wanting to walk by the Holy Spirit while having very little understanding of what they are actually reaching for. Scripture is not vague about this. It tells us exactly what walking by the Holy Spirit looks like, and the recovery of that clarity is one of the most practical things any believer can pursue.
The foundational text is Galatians 5:16. “But I say walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.” Notice the structure of the promise. Walking by the Holy Spirit is presented as the alternative to gratifying the flesh, and the two are set against each other as opposing ways of living. To walk by the Holy Spirit is not merely to add a spiritual practice to an otherwise unchanged life. It is to live in a fundamentally different way, governed by a different power, oriented toward a different end than the way of the flesh that characterises the unregenerate and that still wars against the believer until glory.
Romans 8 fills in what this actually means. Paul writes that God did what the law could not do, condemning sin in the flesh by sending His own Son, “so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh but those who are according to the Spirit the things of the Spirit” Romans 8:4 and 5. The walking is connected to the setting of the mind. Those who walk according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. Those who walk according to the Holy Spirit set their minds on the things of the Holy Spirit. The walking is not first a matter of behaviour. It is first a matter of where the mind is fixed, because the behaviour flows from the orientation of the mind, and the mind set on the things of the Holy Spirit will produce a life that walks in step with Him.
This means the first dimension of walking by the Holy Spirit is the putting to death of sinful practices. Paul says it directly a few verses later. “For if you are living according to the flesh you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body you will live” Romans 8:13. By the Holy Spirit we put to death the deeds of the body. This is not passive. It is active warfare against the patterns of sin that still cling to us, carried out not in our own strength but by the power of the Holy Spirit who indwells us. The believer who is walking by the Holy Spirit is the believer who is actively, daily, putting sin to death rather than allowing it to live unchallenged in the corners of his life. The mortification of sin is not optional for the one walking by the Holy Spirit. It is one of the clearest evidences that the walking is genuinely happening.
The second dimension is being led by the Holy Spirit. “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God these are sons of God” Romans 8:14. The leading of the Holy Spirit is one of the marks of genuine sonship. The Holy Spirit who indwells the believer guides him through the application of the Word to the specific situations of his life, through the conviction of conscience, through the providential ordering of circumstances, and through the steady production of wisdom in the heart that is yielded to Him. The believer who is walking by the Holy Spirit is the believer who is sensitive to this leading, who follows where the Holy Spirit directs, and who does not resist the promptings that the Holy Spirit produces through the means He has appointed.
The third dimension is the intimate knowledge of the Father that the Holy Spirit produces. “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out Abba! Father!” Romans 8:15. The Holy Spirit produces in the believer the awareness of being a child of God, the freedom to approach the Father with the confidence of a son rather than the terror of a slave, the assurance that we belong to Him and are loved by Him. Walking by the Holy Spirit includes living in this relationship, drawing near to the Father through the access the Holy Spirit provides, and resting in the adoption that He has sealed in us. The believer who walks by the Holy Spirit is not a believer crippled by the fear of a master but a child enjoying communion with a Father.
The fourth dimension is prayer. “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” Romans 8:26. The Holy Spirit helps us pray, interceding for us when we do not know what to ask, carrying our prayers to the Father in ways that exceed our own understanding. The believer who walks by the Holy Spirit is a praying believer, dependent on the Holy Spirit’s help in the very act of approaching God, sustained in communion with the Father through the ministry of the Holy Spirit who knows the mind of God and prays according to His will. A prayerless Christian is not a Christian walking by the Holy Spirit, because the walking includes the dependence on the Holy Spirit that expresses itself in sustained prayer.
So a person committed to putting sin to death, following the leading of the Holy Spirit, living in the assurance of adoption, and maintaining a genuine prayer life is the kind of person who is walking by the Holy Spirit. But Paul does not leave the description there. He goes on in Galatians 5 to describe the fruit that the Holy Spirit produces in the one who walks by Him. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness self control; against such things there is no law” Galatians 5:22 and 23. This fruit is not manufactured by human effort. It is the natural produce of a life that is walking by the Holy Spirit, growing organically over time as the Holy Spirit does His work in the yielded believer. The presence of this fruit, developing slowly and consistently across the years, is one of the surest evidences that the walking is genuine, and the absence of it is one of the surest signs that something is wrong at the foundational level.
Paul then adds a dimension that we often miss. Walking by the Holy Spirit includes the way we treat other believers. “If we live by the Spirit let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become boastful challenging one another envying one another” Galatians 5:25 and 26. The walking is not merely individual. It has direct implications for how we relate to the people around us. Conceit, provocation, and envy are the marks of the flesh. Humility, encouragement, and love are the marks of the one walking by the Holy Spirit. And Paul pushes this even further into the opening verses of the next chapter. “Brethren even if anyone is caught in any trespass you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself so that you too will not be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ” Galatians 6:1 and 2. Walking by the Holy Spirit includes loving others to the extent of helping them out of their sin, restoring the fallen with gentleness, bearing the burdens that others cannot carry alone, all while keeping careful watch over our own lives so that we are not ourselves drawn into the very temptations we are helping others escape.
This is what walking by the Holy Spirit actually looks like when Scripture describes it fully. It is the putting to death of sin. It is the following of the Holy Spirit’s leading. It is the intimate knowledge of the Father. It is a life of prayer. It is the steady growth of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. It is the loving treatment of other believers. And it is the willingness to help others out of their sin while guarding our own hearts against the same temptations. Paul closes the letter with a benediction on those who live this way. “And those who will walk by this rule peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God” Galatians 6:16. Peace and mercy upon those who walk according to God’s ways. The walking by the Holy Spirit is not a burden imposed on us. It is the path of peace and mercy, the way of life that the Holy Spirit Himself produces in those He indwells, and the way that leads to the flourishing of the soul that has been brought into union with Christ.
So let us walk by the Holy Spirit. Not as an abstract aspiration but as the concrete daily reality that Scripture has described for us. Let us put sin to death by His power. Let us follow His leading through the Word and the conscience He has shaped. Let us live in the assurance of the adoption He has sealed in us. Let us pray with His help. Let us bear His fruit as it grows in us over time. Let us love the believers around us, restoring the fallen and bearing one another’s burdens. And let us guard our own hearts against the temptations that would draw us back into the flesh we have been called out of. The same Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in every believer, and the life that walks by Him is the life that experiences the peace and mercy that He alone can produce in the souls He has been given to sanctify until the day of Christ.
He, who has ears to hear, let him hear.