“Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him,” Colossians 2:6
“I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father.” 2 John 4
“whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. ” 1 John 2:6
Walk in him. Walk in truth. Walk in the same way he walked. None of these commands are needed or make any sense without the component of change. God’s goal in our walk is to change us from what we were into what we are. Change into what we are? That doesn’t make sense. You don’t change into what you already are. I don’t change my clothes and put the same clothes on. I don’t change light bulbs and put the old one in again. What do you mean change into what we are?
Here’s what the Bible means by this. When we receive salvation through Christ by faith, God declares us eternally righteous in spiritual standing before him. This is known as justification. We are positionally righteous before him. God’s purpose in The Walk is to change us in daily living into what we are positionally before him. Holy.
If we want to know what that looks like, he gave us an example. Have you thought about why the Holy Spirit included so many stories about Jesus that you don’t have to know be saved. He could have picked up the story at the Cross and moved on from there. But he gives us this whole back story including his childhood, his friends and companions, and insights into how he handled temptation and fatigue and criticism and betrayal and the death of a loved one and anguish of the world moments like Gethsemane. To be saved you don’t have to know anything about Gethsemane. Why include that?
To give us an example. A model. A daily life paradigm to follow and to seek to conform our lives to. It is a long walk in the same direction but as we walk, we are changed. Our lives are more and more worthy of the Lord, more and more befitting a Christ follower. We increasingly walk in the light of ethical integrity as we integrate our faith into categories of our lives. We increasingly aren’t who we use to be and are more and more changed into who we are in Christ.
That is the walk.
© 2011 Steve DeWitt. You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author, (2) any modifications are clearly marked, (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, (4) you include Bethel’s web site address(http://www.bethelweb.org/) on the copied resource.
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