The Christian Walk
When the Bible talks about “walking” it is talking about behavior. That is, “to walk” is to move ahead in the behavior that pleases God. Well, Christian walking is suffering from a growing condition of moral arthritis. Our “spiritual movements,” so to speak, are being seriously hampered by a debilitating infirmity. It’s mostly cultural, where our American society has moved away from the Judeo-Christian ethic to a pagan ethic of hedonism. But, it is also quite personal, and is expressed in the statement: “I don’t want to.”
Well, I’m not going to spend time bemoaning the fact of our moral decline and then lecture the reader on shaping up. No. Frankly, we’re beyond that. What we need now is to “strengthen what remains.” This advice was given by the Lord Jesus to the church at Sardis. He tells them that they think that they’re alive, but they are dead. The solution: “strengthen what remains.” From the text this can only mean “the things that yet please God.”
“Remember!” That’s the call. Remember “what you have received and heard and keep it.” Walk in it.
We do well to remember in our Christian walk the things that we have learned (in church) and keep them.
Paul writes to the Ephesians, a church full of pagan people surrounded by a pagan society,
“…that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles (pagans) walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them…”
(Ephes. 3.17-19)
Too harsh? I think not. If we thought the thoughts of God as given to us in the Bible, we wouldn’t be living in the mess that we are now. Instead, we have been thinking like pagans.
Christian walking demands that we “lay aside the old self…and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (Ephes. 3.22-24). And there it is: righteousness, holiness and truth. It always comes back to these things which are an offense to the pagan. Jesus said,
“For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life…”
(Matt.7.14)
Being morally decadent takes no effort at all.
My wife likes to walk. She finds it to be good exercise. I don’t like to walk. I find it boring. Our attitudes parallel what’s happening now among believers. “Walking” takes effort; it demands a certain discipline, and good health requires it. So it is that we need to “strengthen what remains” and start “walking” once again in the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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