Living the Triumphant Life - Walking by the Spirit

The phrase "walk by the Spirit" occurs not only in verse 25 but also in verse 16,"But I say, walk by the Spirit and do not gratify the desires of the flesh."So here we see what the opposite of walking by the Spirit is, namely, giving in to the desires of the flesh. Remember, "flesh" is the old, ordinary human nature that does not relish the things of God and prefers to get satisfaction from independence, power, prestige, and worldly pleasures. When we "walk by the Spirit," we are not controlled by those driving forces. This is what verse 17 means: the flesh produces one kind of desire, and the Spirit produces another kind, and they are opposed to each other.

Walking by the Spirit is what we do when the desires produced by the Spirit are stronger than the desires produced by the flesh. This means that "walking by the Spirit" is not something we do in order to get the Spirit's help, but rather, just as the phrase implies, it is something we do by the enablement of the Spirit.