Flesh and Spirit on the Same Road

Flesh and Spirit on the Same Road 

— By M.T. Clark — P-1962, 05/13/2026 — Today’s Audio Podcast 

Today’s Message on YouTube:

Today’s photo of a dead tree and a utility pole at the top of the last rise of “Freedom Road” before it meets Waite Road comes to us from yours truly, as I captured many scenes from my last walk back to my former countryside home in Easton back on April 26th.

Well, it’s Wednesday, and I share this photo of the last hump in the road as a visual representation of our arrival to another midweek summit, so happy hump day,  and to encourage us all to keep on doing the next right thing, even if we are in an uphill battle, and to not forget to ask God to help us to rise up to meet the challenges in our paths as we move forward,  and deeper, into His grace. 

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The Christian walk requires the decision to keep going in faith, and it is not a decision made once — it is made daily. Waking in the Spirit isn’t an occasional event. It’s a continuous and progressive journey of surrendering to God’s way of living. 

Likewise, our current series, “Walking in the Spirit,” continues where we left off yesterday.  Thus far, we have settled the truth that the Holy Spirit already lives in every believer. We also observed that the Holy Spirit brings life into every place He is given permission to dwell. And today we have to face the part of the journey that catches most believers off guard: the realization that the flesh and the Spirit are “on the same road,” so to speak. Even after we are filled with the Holy Spirit, the flesh is still there, walking with us, often tripping us up.  

The Apostle Paul did not hide this truth. He made it central to his teaching on the Spirit-led life. Galatians 5:16-17 puts it plainly:

“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.” — Galatians 5:16-17

That last phrase deserves to be read twice. To keep you from doing the things you want to do. 

Paul is not describing an obscure theological problem. He is describing the lived experience of every believer who has ever tried to walk faithfully and found himself doing the thing he did not want to do — and not doing the thing he meant to do. 

If you have ever asked the question, “Why is this still so hard? I thought I was supposed to be changed when I got saved. Why do I still struggle with this?”, you are not weak in your faith. 

You are reading the New Testament right. Paul wrote about this double-minded paradox in Romans 7.  So those who do what they don’t want to do and don’t do the things they want to do are not alone. 

Here is the truth: when you came to Christ, the Holy Spirit took up permanent residence in you. But your flesh — the old patterns, the old reflexes, the old appetites — did not get uprooted. The flesh is still standing right there next to the Holy Spirit who lives in you.

The difference is that one of them is doing the work it was built for, and the other one is not.

This is where many believers get tripped up. We expect the flesh to disappear the moment we are saved, and when it does not, we either fake it — pretending the struggle is not real — or we despair, concluding that we must not really be saved.

Neither response is biblical. The biblical response is to recognize that the flesh is still there, but it no longer has to control us. 

I know this from experience. When the Lord brought me out of eastern mysticism and my theological ignorance and deception of my old life back in 2010, I was overjoyed by God’s forgiveness and love, but I didn’t really believe that the desires of my flesh would be taken away. I just figured that I would continually be forgiven because I thought I was powerless to leave my addictions and sins behind. 

Even though I didn’t have any plans on changing, In His Grace, the Holy Spirit gave me a desire to be a “real Christian” and caused me to earnestly seek to know more about God and the truth of His word. And gradually and then suddenly – after much struggling and falling down repeatedly- the Lord led me to repentance and recovery. 

And God was faithful in helping me to turn from my addictions and sin, one after another, to help me to grow into the person He made me to be. 

Some of my struggles were, taken away almost at once. Others took years. A few of them I still have to walk past every day. They do not move. They are still there. But I am not stopping at them anymore. I am still walking forward.

That is what Paul is getting at. Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. The flesh is not eliminated — it is starved. It loses its power when we stop feeding it and start walking in the direction the Holy Spirit is leading. 

We do not have to stop and admire what we used to call home. We do not have to wrestle with it. We just have to keep walking.

So how do we do it? Three things Paul gives us throughout his letters:

First — we acknowledge the reality. We stop pretending the flesh is gone. We stop being shocked when it shows up. We stop confusing the existence of temptation with the failure of our faith. 

The flesh standing there is no evidence that the Holy Spirit has left. It is evidence that we are still walking on this road called life. This is the real world after all, right? So, we accept the challenge for what it is.

Second — we do not feed it. The flesh is going to try to satisfy its desires, and we need to crucify it, we starve it. 

Paul is blunt in Romans 13:14: “Make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” 

That means we do not put ourselves in situations where the flesh will get fed. We do not rehearse the old thoughts. We do not linger in the places that used to take us down. We close the doors that need to be closed.

Third — we keep walking by the Holy Spirit. This is the most important one — and the simplest. The Spirit-led life is not the absence of the flesh. It is the daily choice to follow the Holy Spirit into all truth and further into our new lives in Christ. We keep listening for His voice. We keep doing the next right thing in front of us.

The flesh is still standing. So is the Holy Spirit. The question for today is not whether the struggle is real — it is. 

The question is which one you are going to keep walking with.

You already know the answer. Keep on walking and talking with God.

— M.T.

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“The views, opinions, and commentary of this publication are those of the author, M.T. Clark, only, and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of any of the photographers, artists, ministries, or other authors of the other works that may be included in this publication, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities the author may represent.”

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