Let’s Take a Walk (part 1)

Let’s Take a Walk (part 1)

The words sprint, dash, jog, trot, compare with the word 

“walk” as the speedy hare with the plodding tortoise.  These words speak of greater-than-normal exertion, because “in a race, all the runners run, but only one receives the prize” (I Corinthians 9:24). As the tortoise came on to beat the hare, so the one who walks ‘” in love” will, in fact, be victorious ln the pursuit of life eternal.

“Walk” is used in the Bible to (1) indicate normal

moving around.  This is the sense of the word used when

Jesus was coming to the disciples, Matthew 14:25ff.

When Paul tells the Ephesians to walk in love, and

as children of light (5:8), “walk” refers (2) to the journey

of life.  On this journey, how are we to walk?   We begin

with the passage just cited: we must walk in love.  If we

truly walk in love we will obey Him; “For this is the love

of God, that we keep His commandments” (I John 5:3.) 

If we walk in love of God, our walk with our fellow man is

natural.  So Paul writes, “Let all that you do be done in love” 

(I Corinthians 16:14).

We “walk … according to. the Spirit”, Romans 8:4.

Those who walk according to the Spirit arrange their

lives as the Spirit directs, because “the fruit of the Spirit

is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,

faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things

there is no law” (Galatians 5:22, 23).

           

There is a choice we must make, between flesh and

spirit; Romans 8:5-8, “For those who live according to

the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.  For

to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind

on the Spirit is life and peace.  For the mind that is set on

the flesh is hostile to God for it does not submit to God’s

law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh

cannot please God.”

“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we

have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus

His Son cleanses us from all sin” (I John 1:7).

Understanding “walking in the light” is helped by

considering walking in darkness.  One does not have to

do only sin, to be walking in darkness; he is just

indifferent to the light, walking (living) as it suits him;

and occasionally, maybe accidentally, doing something

good.

By the same token, one does not have to be sinless,

to be walking in the light – his aim and preference is to

be obeying God, and when he stumbles, if he repents

and confesses his sins, the blood of Jesus cleanses

him.  People who are “in the light” are already

acquainted with the blood of Jesus.  There is no

forgiveness of sins “without the shedding of blood”

(Hebrews 9:22), but “it is impossible for the blood of

bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4).  The

writer of Hebrews talks about the impossibility of goats’

and bulls’ blood for purification of the flesh, and then

asks, “how much more will the blood of Christ, who

though the eternal Spirit offered himself without

blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works

to serve the living God” (Hebrews 9:13, 14).  The blood

of Christ is the price of forgiveness for every sinner.  It is,

therefore, the price for forgiveness for a straying Christian…

Pat