If you have been born by the Spirit of God, you live your life differently than you did when you lived according to this world. God saved us so that we would choose to walk with Him. Salvation (the gift of Eternal Life) was given so that we would have the ability to turn to God for direction and leadership in our lives.

What is it to walk in the Spirit? First, we need to identify what spirit we are talking about. It is the Holy Spirit of God. If you are born again, you are walking with the Spirit. According to God's Word, if you are not walking in the Spirit, you are abnormal. Jesus was the most normal man on this earth. He did nothing on His own. He simply walked the earth, connected to the Holy Spirit so that all He did was in accordance with what God desired. When you are walking with God as He desires, you will experience the normal Christian life that God planned for all of us.

What does it mean to walk in the Spirit? It means we are under the influence of the Spirit. It means we are moved by Him. We are literally influenced by His leading. If we don't follow Him, we will follow the god of this world and all of his temptations, distractions and destruction. We seek God by reading His word, spending time with Him, abiding in Him. When you are abiding in His love, He sustains you. As you become more normal, you will become more loving, you will care more about the things that touch the heart of God.

When we are walking in His Spirit, we become vessels He can use. We don't lose our identity in Him. We reach our identity. He knows us better than we know ourselves. His desire for us is that we would be fully complete in ways that can only happen when we have submitted to God. His desire is to teach us the deep things of His heart to develop in us His mind. It is through those things that we experience freedom and discover hope. Those who talk spiritually but live according to the values of this world cannot comprehend the things that God has planned for them. When we live according to the world's value system, we are more concerned with how man perceives us than how God sees us. As believers, when we choose to live this way we search for fulfillment in something that will never come. Only God can see our hearts. Apart from Him, we can do nothing of spiritual value or eternal nature. Only an authentic work of the Holy Spirit will touch the lives of those who so desperately need Him.

Is the Holy Spirit making an impression on your heart? Is He moving through you? Do you see the evidence of His love spilling over into the lives of others? If not, you may be abnormal by God's standards. God's desire for you is to experience the normal life of power, of freedom, and of hope found only in Him when we walk in His Spirit.