Can one be in the Spirit but live according to the flesh?

I feel like that is maybe what Paul is assuring us of.. we are not in the flesh, if the Spirit is in us. But in that case, I think it must be possible to live according to the flesh, even while not being in the flesh. Because it is a battle every day for me to not have my mind set on the things of the flesh. I’m thinking that that’s a battle which is only possible at all through the Spirit dwelling in me; otherwise I wouldn’t even be able to fight the flesh. But this passage does sound very much like it’s the one or the other… either you are in the flesh or in the Spirit, and whichever one you are in, you live like it. But we know from Romans 7 (I think) as well as from everyday experience that we totally can be in the Spirit but still battle against the flesh. I guess my question, born of judgment of other Christians, which I shouldn’t do, is… is it possible to be in the Spirit but NOT battle against the flesh? The reason I ask this is because so often you see people or societies unchanged or unaffected by their purported Christianity, and it worries me. But I think I need to not judge. I don’t know what God is doing on their insides; I don’t know what they might have done if the Spirit were not working in them and transforming them.

And if I see people living with sin in their lives but content with it? What does this passage have to say about that? I guess there are two interpretations. One is; if I look at myself and my own history, I know that God has been working sequentially in different areas of my life, convicting me of sin and healing me. He needed to heal me of hating and fearing people before he could heal me from jealousy, and he needed to heal me of jealousy before he could heal me of judgment and condescension. So judgment and condescension were there even when I feared people; they were sin that I was living with, basically content and unaware, for many, many years. All the while He was not doing nothing in me; he was working on different areas. So, I was still, in those areas, walking according to the flesh and setting (part of) my mind on the things of the flesh, but that doesn’t mean that the Spirit wasn’t in me working. That might be a bit of revisionist history, but I think it’s mostly right.

The other interpretation is that: there are lots of people who will cry out, “Lord, Lord,” but Jesus will say, “I never knew you.” And why? Because they saw him hungry, naked, in prison, etc and didn’t feed, clothe or visit him… that is, their faith was never translated into actions. They thought they had the Spirit, but they did not. If they had, the Spirit in them would have cried out to them to cloth the naked and feed the hungry, and they would have done it. As the next verse says, “Now, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ in him, he is not his.” This is frightening, because it makes me wonder if there are people who think that they belong to Christ, but they don’t… he doesn’t even know them. There are, it says there are. What then do we do when we see a Christian not living rightly? Do we judge them or not? Are they in the first or second category?

Of course, pray! If the Spirit is in me, as well, it is the same Spirit that is in them and wants the same thing. I think—I know!—that the Spirit uses other Christians, uses the body of Christ to do His work in us. If the Spirit is working in us, telling us how the other person can be corrected, it is just a part of His healing work in that person’s life. The same Spirit is working in me as in other people, so when another person tells me where I am living in the flesh and not pleasing God, the Spirit in me responds and resonates, making me aware of the part of my life he wants to heal and restore. I know this is true. But if a person does not have the Spirit at all, and Christ doesn’t know them…how can we know that? Only God knows the heart. I guess the answer is the same: pray for wisdom. He wants them to be saved and to really know Him.

That’s a whole other question—how do you recognize and deal with sin but not judge it, since only God can judge? But that’s sort of outside of the scope of this passage.