Galatians 5:16-6:10.  Sorry this didn’t get posted yesterday.  I was at church when I did the reading and kind of crashed when I got home.  It was kind of cool how the sermon tied in with the reading.  First there is a tension here like a battle.  Our internal desires verses what God wants.  The Holy Spirit is in our lives trying to direct us the way God wants us to go but our desires (the flesh) are pushing us the other way.  It’s a tug of war but we are not just a peice of rope we have a part in what happens.  We need to “walk” by the Spirit and be “led” by the Spirit.  The choice is also obvious in the end of verse 17.  Bible scholars are not sure whether Paul is talking about desires of the flesh or encouragement from the Holy Spirit when he mentions what “pleases” them, what they “want”.  If they want to follow their own internal desires (the flesh) then Paul is saying to them that should not do what they want.  If what “pleases” them is to follow God then Paul is pointing out how hard it is to not follow their natural desires.  I like verses 18 where he says that if they are following the Holy Spirit that they are not under the Law.  They are free from the condemnation that comes from the Old Testament Law (See the “Old Testament Connection” for more about what the Old Testament Law is all about).  Paul then describes deeds or works of our natural desires and contrasts them with the “fruit” that the Holy Spirit produces in our lives.  After listing the kind of character that the Holy Spirit produces he mentions the Law again in verse 23.  He says that there is no law against the kind of character that the Holy Spirit produces.  So a person who has put their faith in Jesus no longer lives under the legal system of the Old Testament they are free and have the Holy Spirit to lead them but they are not breaking the Law either.  In the “Old Testament Connection” I talked about what death is, separation.  In Galatians 5:24 Paul says that if we belong to Jesus that we have “crucified the flesh with it’s desires and passions”.  to anyone living in Roman times crucifixion was a symbol of death, no one survived that brutal execution.  If we are in Jesus we have separated ourselves from our natural desires.  Sure they still haunt us but they are not tied to us and we do not have to follow them.  In Galatians 4:29 Paul links putting your faith in Jesus with the Holy Spirit.  In Galatians  5:25 when he talks about living by the Spirit I think he means the same thing. Since you relationship with God was started by the Holy Spirit  you need to continue that way.  Galatians 5:26 echos the words In verse 15, stop trying to control each other’s relationship with God.  Then chapter 6 begins by echoing what Paul said in Galatians 5:14 and what Jesus said in Matthew 22:34-40 (Mark 12:28-31). Instead of judging each other we need to encourage each other in our relationship with God.  Paul also says we need to spend more time using these ideas to check out our own lives.  Kind of like when Jesus said to take the log out of our own eye before we take the little speck of wood out of someone else’s.  The part of the reading in chapter 6 seems to be all about serving.  We need to be servants and help other in what ever way we can.  Lord help us listen to Your Spirit.  Our own desires keep haunting us.  God let me be more in touch with You through Your word.  And then let me live it.  Let me not be discouraged by my failures or the failures of the world around me.  Help me walk by the Spirit today and forever.