Dear Lord, we so thank You once again for the great love with which You have loved us, and for that keeping power that has brought us to this moment.
We thank You for the new life that You have given us and the hope that is contained in it. And Lord, we have to confess that unless You move, unless You work, unless Your Spirit comes and teaches, there is no transaction that will take place here of any value.
And so we look to You, that You truly would be the Teacher here, the One speaking that word that gives life; that You would open up our ears to be able to hear it, dear Lord; and that we would hear it, we would see You, and we would be changed.
And so, Lord, we place this time into Your hands, recognizing that You have ordained it, that You are the One who is the Giver of life and the Sustainer of life. And so we look to You, Lord, and we thank You for this opportunity. In Thy most wonderful name, Lord Jesus. Amen.
When I was a much, much younger man, in high school, I was very active, very athletic—sort of a jock, you know. I played soccer, wrestled, and ran track. I enjoyed it all and loved the accolades. I was in varsity sports and appreciated all the accolades. It was just a great, great thing—to get to that finish line and hear the cheers and the crowds. You know, I loved it.
And I have been a competitive person most all of my life. After high school, during Vietnam, I was drafted into the Army, and I had a rude awakening coming to me. I was sent out to Colorado Springs, Colorado, to train.
I got off the bus in the middle of the night with people screaming in my face: “Get over here! Move here! Do this! Do that!” I was scared.
Finally, they got us to our barracks, and I was getting ready for a good night’s sleep after the plane ride. The next morning, while it was still dark, they came into the place screaming and hollering at us: “Get out of the bed!” We had to get our uniforms on, and we went out to this big field to do calisthenics.
Then after that, these lunatics asked us to run. I should not say they asked us to run. They said, “All right, let’s run.”
Now, I came from New York, on Long Island. We were about zero feet above sea level, and now I am in the mountains of Colorado. They got us running. I forget exactly what it was that first morning—three miles, five miles; inconsequential. All I knew was that I was dying. I mean, people were dropping like flies off the road, and it was terrible.
And I think really from that moment on, I disliked running. I still do not run.
And I am so glad that the Lord did not say, “Run before Me.” But He says, “Walk before Me, and be blameless.” And that is what we want to look at a bit today: walking before the Lord.
If we turn to Isaiah 40:25:
To whom then will ye liken Me,
that I should be equal? saith the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high,
and see Who hath created these,
that bringeth out their host by number;
He calleth them all by name;
by the greatness of His might,
and for that He is strong in power,
not one faileth.
Why sayest thou, O Jacob,
and speakest, O Israel,
My way is hid from the Lord,
and the justice due to me is passed away from my God?
Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard?
The everlasting God, the Lord,
the Creator of the ends of the earth,
fainteth not, neither is weary;
there is no searching of His understanding.
He giveth power to the faint;
and to him that hath no might He increaseth strength.
Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
and the young men shall utterly fall:
but they that wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings as eagles;
they shall run, and not be weary;
they shall walk, and not faint.
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength.
And before that He asks this question: “Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the Lord’?” Sometimes we do not understand exactly what is going on in our lives.
But God wants to say to us, “I am the One who rescued you from the pit. Do you remember? I am the One who has kept you to this point. Do you remember? I am the One who has sustained you and given you a life, given you a hope that you did not have before. Do you remember when you were blind and walked in darkness? Remember these things.”
Why do you say to Me now, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over by my God”? Do you not think that I know exactly what is going on in your life right now? Why do you question? I am the God who saves, and I am the God who keeps, and I am the God who knows exactly what is going on in your life.
But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. Now, when He says that, to wait on something means that we are looking for something that, in one sense, we do not have in ourselves. We do not have it in our possession. We are waiting for it to come.
And really what that is speaking of is that there has to come a point in our lives to which God brings us. Jerry had even mentioned it here. He came to this difficult time in his life, and the Lord spoke to him. He said, “Why, Lord? Why is this?” And the Lord spoke to him and said He wanted to show Jerry that it was the power of His very life within him that keeps, sustains, and brings healing.
And that is something of what the Lord wants to say to us. We all have to come to a place where we realize that, in and of ourselves, we do not have the ability. We do not have the means to go on and to live a life that is pleasing to God.
So, those who wait on the Lord—we need to come into the realization that it is out of this other life within us that we live.
Sometimes we want to rush in and take control, and do things out of our own strength, out of our own abilities, out of our own history and past. We want to go in there and fix things and adjust things as best we know how to do.
But it is in our own strength, you see. It is out of our own abilities. It is about what we have learned, what we have been conditioned to do. And God wants to say, “Wait. Let My life enter in here.”
He gives power to the weak. You know, in 2 Corinthians 12, it says:
My grace is sufficient for thee:
for My power is made perfect in weakness.
Wait. Let Me demonstrate My power in your life.
And to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. Sometimes here we are, the youthful ones—not only chronologically, but in the Lord—and we just think we can do it. We have so much self-confidence. We have seen some of the things that the Lord has done in our lives, and then all of a sudden we start taking things back up into our own hands because we are strong and vibrant.
I remember many, many years ago—Bob and Danette could remember this—I used to say, half jokingly, as they said of Moses, “His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.” I used to say, “Yeah, that is the way I am going to be. That is the way I want to be. That is what my testimony would be: that my eye would not dim, nor my vigor be abated.”
My eye has been dimmed. I have an artificial hip. My vigor is not what it used to be. It is something like Jacob—not that I am comparing myself with him—but something had to happen to Jacob where it was not his vigor nor his strength anymore, but it was the Lord. Somehow God is wanting to do that in our lives, my dear brothers and sisters.
But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. I am also glad that the Lord did not say, “Fly before Me.”
But sometimes we can have these wonderful experiences where we are really lifted up by the power of God. It is wonderful, and we can enjoy them and bless the Lord for them. But if we live our life on those experiences, we will find that when the difficult times come, we will not have strength because we have been relying on an experience.
We go from one experience to another experience to get that lifted-up feeling. Now, God can, like I said, lift us up. He can put that wind beneath the wings and just let us soar like eagles.
There is also this issue of running. We can run, but sometimes we are running, as I said, in our own strength, and we will be wearied unless God is the One who gives us the strength.
But here comes the test, and it is this: they shall walk and not faint. There are times that we soar like eagles, and there are times that we can run. But you know what? We always have to walk. Herein lies the test.
Sometimes we think about it, and it just seems so darn boring: walk. I would rather get there. I am sort of a mover and a shaker, a goer. I want to get someplace.
If I am going on a trip, I am not a sightseer. I have a destination in mind. I jump in the car. When I used to live in Florida and had relatives in New York, I would jump in the car, and twenty-four hours later we were pulling into New York. I was not stopping to look at the scenery or the places along the way. I just wanted to get there. That is just the way I have been.
But walking is something that we have to do every day. And like I say, it may seem boring and mundane, but it is in this walking that the Lord wants to build character into our life.
When the Scriptures speak of walking, that is what they are speaking of: character. God builds character into our life by our walking.
Now, what is walking? Turn to Genesis 5. We are going to see a walker here, and the results of his walking are glorious.
Starting in Genesis 5:21:
And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah:
and Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years,
and begat sons and daughters:
and all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years:
and Enoch walked with God: and he was not;
for God took him.
That is very interesting. Enoch was the seventh after Adam. All the patriarchs that lived before the flood, except for Noah, were born before Adam died. Now, why is that significant?
If you remember, Romans 10 says:
How then shall they call on Him in Whom they have not believed?
and how shall they believe in Him Whom they have not heard?
and how shall they hear without a preacher?
Adam was the preacher. These patriarchs before the flood, except for Noah, were all born before Adam died. So Adam was able to say to them, “Oh, it was glorious—the creation. It was so wonderful. When the God of all creation asked me to name all the animals, it was wonderful. He created for me a helpmate.”
“Oh, and there was a terrible time when we were tempted and we fell. But God had a provision. There was a curse, but along with the curse came a blessing.” So Adam was able to relate this to them.
They heard from the preacher about this great salvation that the Creator had made for them. So they were aware. And though these other men were probably quite virtuous, as Noah was, they were still men of flesh. They still had their difficulties. They still sinned, but they knew that there was a promise, and so they had relationship with God.
But of these, it seems that Enoch excelled. There is something very interesting when you see this. It says Enoch was sixty-five, and he begat Methuselah. Then he walked with God for three hundred years more.
You know what that speaks to me? It speaks to me that somewhere in this process, this man of flesh—this man who had some relationship and some knowledge of God the Creator—experienced some transaction. There must have been reconciliation and repentance, because it says that at sixty-five he had Methuselah, and then he walked with God.
After three hundred years, God took him. Now, that seems like a long time, but when you look at the rest of these patriarchs, most of them lived for at least eight hundred years, and some into the nine hundreds.
Somehow Enoch was just filled with a love for the Creator, obviously so, because he was the one who was taken, who did not experience death.
Is this not something of a picture of our Lord Jesus Himself? Enoch overcame death. He did not have to suffer death. He lived a virtuous and righteous life, and he was taken up. It speaks of the resurrection, does it not? Does it not say something to our hearts about that?
So, walking with God—what is that? Amos 3:3 says:
Shall two walk together,
except they have agreed?
Somehow in Enoch’s life there was this agreement with God, and that is what we see as the testimony of his life. If you read Hebrews 11, it says that Enoch had this testimony: that he pleased God. And God took him.
This is what we are talking about: a walk with God. This walk with God speaks of walking before God. It speaks of a communing relationship with Him—not wanting to offend Him, wanting to do His will, wanting to be pleasing, wanting to satisfy the heart of God. This is what a walk with God is to be.
If we look at Genesis 12, again looking at walking, we are going to read the first verse and then verses 4 through 10, and take a look at walking in the lives of Abraham and Lot.
Now the Lord said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country,
and from thy kindred,
and from thy father’s house,
unto the land that I will show thee.
So Abram went, as the Lord had spoken unto him;
and Lot went with him:
and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.
And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son,
and all their substance that they had gathered,
and the souls that they had gotten in Haran;
and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan;
and into the land of Canaan they came.
And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem,
unto the oak of Moreh.
And the Canaanite was then in the land.
And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said,
Unto thy seed will I give this land:
and there builded he an altar unto the Lord,
Who appeared unto him.
And he removed from thence unto the mountain on the east of Beth-el,
and pitched his tent, having Beth-el on the west, and Ai on the east:
and there he builded an altar unto the Lord,
and called upon the name of the Lord.
And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the South.
And there was a famine in the land:
and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there;
for the famine was sore in the land.
Now, I find it interesting that when it starts off, it says, “The Lord had said to Abram.” Then, after Abram had obeyed the Lord and left and got on the road, as it were, it says, “Then the Lord appeared to Abram.”
And he built an altar there. Then he moved from there and went to Bethel, and he built an altar and called on the name of the Lord. I see something of a progression here.
The Lord intervenes into Abram’s life and speaks to him. He appears to Abram. This insistence of the Lord, this going after Abram, is so much like what He does in our lives.
I remember as a young man, not knowing the Lord, but feeling pursued by Him in my conscience, in my thoughts. Finally, I came to a place where I heard the Lord speaking, but still I was not responding. I could hear His voice. I could hear the conviction in my own conscience, and I was trying to put it to the side.
But then there was that day when the Lord appeared to me, as it were. He made Himself known. And then the response to that was, “I called upon the name of the Lord.” I made Him my God.
He was God all the time, but I did not recognize Him as my God until that day when I called upon the name of the Lord. And I think that is something of what happened here with Abram: there was this transacting with the Lord. Although he was having this interaction with Him, he came to a place where he made Him his God.
Now, Lot, his nephew, was along with him. And you have to believe this—I know this is somewhat speculation, but I think it is fair to say—when God spoke to Abram and told him to get out of the country, to leave his family, that encounter had to be so real. It was real enough for him to get up and move, to leave everything that was comfortable for him.
You have to believe that he had to say to his family, “You are not going to believe what happened to me last night. I was there, watering the camels, and all of a sudden I heard this voice. And this is what He told me.”
What made it so real to his family was that he was packing up his things and getting ready to leave. Do you understand what I am saying? He conveyed this.
Have we not done that when the Lord has done something to us and we want to share it with people? It is so real to us, we share it, and all of a sudden it not only becomes our reality but, in one sense, their reality. They are caught up with it. They say, “Oh, God is good.”
Well, something like that was going on with Abram and his family. “This is what has happened to me. I do not understand it completely, but this is what happened.” Lot caught hold of that. Because Abram believed, Lot believed.
He believed enough to go with his uncle and leave the country. So, in one sense, Lot’s faith is built on Abram’s faith.
I am going to skip down to Genesis 13. This brings up a point where we see the response to the life of God in believers’ lives.
And Abram went up out of Egypt,
he, and his wife, and all that he had,
and Lot with him, into the South.
And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.
And he went on his journeys from the South even to Beth-el,
unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning,
between Beth-el and Ai,
unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first:
and there Abram called on the name of the Lord.
And Lot also, who went with Abram, had flocks,
and herds, and tents.
And the land was not able to bear them,
that they might dwell together:
for their substance was great,
so that they could not dwell together.
And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram’s cattle
and the herdmen of Lot’s cattle.
I find it interesting that when Abram got to Bethel, it says Abram worshiped. Lot had many flocks and sheep and possessions, but it does not say that Lot worshiped. I think that speaks of something.
Abram was richer than Lot, but there was something in Abram’s life with God that caused him to remember that it was this Creator God, whom he had come to know and had made his God, Who was the provider for him. That caused him to stop and worship.
But now this circumstance comes up in their lives. Sometimes circumstances test us. They show us about our character. It is often a revelation of character.
There is this disturbance among the herdsmen of Abram’s flocks and Lot’s flocks. This is what Abram does, and I think we can see something of the heart of Abram, something of his walk:
And Abram said unto Lot,
Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee,
and between my herdmen and thy herdmen;
for we are brethren.
Is not the whole land before thee?
Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me:
if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right;
or if thou take the right hand, then I will go to the left.
And Lot lifted up his eyes,
and beheld all the Plain of the Jordan,
that it was well watered everywhere,
like the garden of the Lord,
like the land of Egypt, as thou goest unto Zoar.
So Lot chose him all the Plain of the Jordan;
and Lot journeyed east:
and they separated themselves the one from the other.
It was Abram’s right as the elder to have picked first. He could have chosen and said, “Listen, Lot, I have all of this over here. You have the rest.” But there was something in Abram’s heart that saw there was something more important than taking up his right to do something, and it was peace.
He said, “Look, we are brothers. I do not want there to be strife between us. So, Lot, you pick.”
Both Lot and Abram had left behind, as it were, the outward refuge of the world. What do I mean by that? When we come to the Lord, sometimes there are things that just sort of drop away.
We used to hit all the bars, go to the dance clubs, do all these kinds of things, run wild; and all of a sudden the Lord comes into our life, and pow—those things are just gone. We are not hanging in those places. Those outward things seem to be taken away.
Sometimes not immediately, but if you are going on with the Lord, all of a sudden those things are dropping away—all these outward manifestations of the world.
But sometimes our heart still clings to these things. It still clings to the ease of life, still clings to those things that are pleasing to me, that will make it easy for me.
We see something of that with Lot. It says:
And Lot lifted up his eyes,
and beheld all the Plain of the Jordan,
that it was well watered everywhere,
like the garden of the Lord,
like the land of Egypt, as thou goest unto Zoar.
So Lot chose him all the Plain.
Here is something of a difference between a believer who is disinterested in himself, a believer who denies himself for a greater purpose, and a believer who is worldly, self-centered, and carnal. We see the picture of these two kinds of lives in this.
And so Lot chooses what was good for him. But we all know this—we have all heard this before—and that is that good is the enemy of the best. Good is always the enemy of the best.
We just want to settle for good. “It is good. It is good enough.” Matter of fact, that used to be one of the jokes in my family. You would do something and say, “That is good enough.”
Especially when it came to construction work around the house—but you have heard stories about that from me before. I could fix everything with a butter knife. “That is good enough.” You paint the wall, you see some spots: “Good enough. Who is going to see that from Brooklyn?” It is good enough.
That is a kind of attitude. But good is always the enemy of the best. God really wants the best for us, but we are willing to settle for the good because we will not wait upon the Lord.
We will not wait upon the Lord, so we will settle for what is good. But God has something that is better, and it is the best, if we would wait upon the Lord.
Now that they have separated, Genesis 13:14 says:
And the Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him,
Lift up now thine eyes,
and look from the place where thou art northward and southward
and eastward and westward:
for all the land which thou seest,
to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.
And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth:
so that if a man can number the dust of the earth,
then shall thy seed also be numbered.
Arise, walk through the land in the length of it
and in the breadth of it;
for unto thee will I give it.
Then Abram removed his tent,
and came and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre,
which are in Hebron,
and built there an altar unto the Lord.
Sometimes we are ready to settle down. “This is good enough, Lord. You showed me this wonderful salvation. I have something of a picture of what the church life is supposed to be like. This is good enough.” And we pitch our tent and settle down. But that is not the life of the believer.
He says, “Walk in the land”—in the promised land. Walk the land of Canaan. “This is what I am giving to you. This is to be your possession. Walk it.”
And it says that Abram began to walk, and he built an altar, and he worshiped. That is what we are being called to. This is the walk that we are being called to. It is a walk in faith. It is a walk of taking possession of that which God has given to us.
And it is a walk of worship. This is the kind of walkers we should be. We are pilgrims and worshipers. We have to understand that there is a land, a promised land, that has been given to us.
And that is what we see in Abram’s life. Then, if you turn to Genesis 17:1:
And when Abram was ninety years old and nine,
the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him,
I am God Almighty;
walk before Me, and be thou perfect.
This is what God is calling us to: this walk.
When our choices are based upon our rights, we often become spiritually dull. We make choices based on our rights, and we can become spiritually dull because we are not really looking to the Spirit of God to lead us and guide us.
We are not looking to the Lord to make the choices for us, and then agreeing with the Lord. But we are looking because, “Hey, I am entitled to this. This is the way it should be. The way I see it, this is the way it should be.”
We make our choices based upon our own perception of how things can be, but we forget that we are so narrow in our perception of things. But this is God Almighty, Who has a much larger perception of things.
And this God has given us a new life within us. He is wanting to teach us how to rely on that life, this indwelling life, to choose for us.
This is the secret of walking blamelessly before the Lord: faith in the other life, and not trusting your own.
This is not a matter of trying. It is a matter of trusting. There is a big difference here. It is not a matter of trying; it is a matter of trusting.
Romans 6:4:
We were buried therefore with Him through baptism into death:
that like as Christ was raised from the dead
through the glory of the Father,
so we also might walk in newness of life.
That is just what I was saying. How do we walk in newness of life? Let me put it another way: let us walk in the new life. God has given you and me a new life, and that is what He is asking us to do.
We need to walk out of this new life rather than that old life. So, let us walk in newness of life. It is, though, my dear brothers and sisters, a life of faith. It is believing, firstly, that you have a new life. It is believing the Word of God.
We have been placed into Christ Jesus, and He is in us as we are in Him. So walk in the new life, out of His life and not of your own. Now, how does that happen?
Turn to Ephesians 4, starting in the first verse:
I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord,
beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called,
with all lowliness and meekness,
with longsuffering,
forbearing one another in love;
giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit
in the bond of peace.
Paul is encouraging these believers to walk in a worthy manner. This matter of the word walk speaks of integrity. It speaks of walking in truth. That is what that word means.
He describes some of the qualities, some of the characteristics, of this walk: lowliness, gentleness, longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
You look at that and say, “Oh, okay, good. All right, I am going to be longsuffering, and I am going to be lowly.” Then you try to be longsuffering and lowly, and you find it so frustrating because, “I just cannot be lowly. I cannot. I am too proud to be lowly.”
You try to be lowly and you are not—you are proud. Even in being lowly, you are proud. You know what I mean? “I just want to let you know how lowly I am.” You are proud about your lowliness. So it is frustrating. The harder you try, the further behind you get.
That is what God is wanting to say: “Stop trying, and start trusting My work. From the day that you received Me as your Savior and your Lord, My life came in you. It is the overcoming life. I am the lowly One. I am the meek One. I am the One who can longsuffer.”
This you have to take by faith. Believe that. And God will bring circumstances into our lives where we can allow Him to demonstrate His goodness, His mercy, and His longsuffering.
It is a walk of repentance. Do you walk in repentance?
When you come across these situations where you ought to be longsuffering, and you really want to strangle this brother or sister—that is what is really going on in your heart. You want to pulverize them with your words into the ground. This is what is going on in your heart, and you recognize it.
But then the Word of God comes back to you and says, “Longsuffering. Gentleness. Meekness.” It should cause us right then and there to repent.
That is all the Lord is asking you to do: to recognize and to repent, and say, “Lord, I have to tell You, I am not able to. This brother, this sister—they just get my goat. I cannot love them. I cannot be longsuffering. Forgive me.”
“Forgive me for that sin in my life. Forgive me for my pride. Forgive me for my intolerance. Forgive me for pointing my finger at everybody else when I see the same things in my own life.”
Do we walk in repentance? We should be walking in repentance every day so that God can transform us.
This is a walk of repentance. That is the only way that these qualities of the walk, these qualities of the life of the Lord Jesus, become the qualities of our own life. We have to recognize and be able to repent so that the Lord can come through.
Repentance—or lack of repentance—blocks the life of God in us. That is how practical it is, my dear brothers and sisters.
When you have had an argument and you just want to have your own way, God has to come in there and show that to you. “Lord, forgive me. Forgive me for my attitude. And now, Lord, please let Your life come forth.”
That is how God wants to establish this walk in us that will be pleasing to Him.
In Ephesians 5, I am going to read verses 1 and 2, and 8 through 10:
Be ye therefore imitators of God, as beloved children;
and walk in love,
even as Christ also loved you,
and gave Himself up for us,
an offering and a sacrifice to God
for an odor of a sweet smell.
When it says, “Walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave Himself up for us,” this is not flower petals thrown on the sidewalk and sweet-smelling things all around—the sort of sissy-Mary kind of love.
It says, “Walk in love as Christ walked in love.” What does it say of this kind of love? That He offered Himself as a sacrifice. So this walk means that it is an offering. Your life is an offering unto God.
How is that worked out practically? It is that you are an offering and a sacrifice for your brother or sister. My life should be an offering and a sacrifice for you.
How do I know that? Because that is what Christ did for me. His life was an offering and sacrifice for me. That is what He is calling you to. Your life has to be an offering and a sacrifice for me. That is the way you love me.
It is very easy to love one another when it is convenient. It is easy when it is convenient for you to help another brother or sister. Or when someone calls up and says, “Can you do this for me?” “Oh, yeah, I would, but I have to mop the floor over here. See, if you cannot get anybody else, maybe then I might be able to help you.”
But when they call and you already have the mop on the floor and it is wet, and then, without them knowing it, you say, “Yeah, no problem. I will be right there”—you are an offering; you are a sacrifice. That is the way you are demonstrating your love.
That is the kind of love He is talking about here. It is between husbands and wives. When it is inconvenient, when you are called and you really do not want to get off that couch, you get up off the couch and you go. That is really the kind of love God is looking for, because that is the kind of love with which He loved us.
For ye were once darkness,
but are now light in the Lord:
walk as children of light
(for the fruit of the light is in all goodness
and righteousness and truth),
proving what is well-pleasing unto the Lord.
Sometimes we do not want to know what is acceptable to the Lord. Do you hear what I am saying? We are afraid to go to the Lord because we are bent on doing what we want to do.
We do not want to know what is acceptable to the Lord because then we would have to change our plans. We would have to change the direction in which we are going. So we do not want to confront Him. We do not want to meet with Him because we are afraid of what He is going to say.
It is the same thing sometimes. We do not like to hear it, but brothers and sisters have something to say to us that is from the Lord. We become too easily offended when they come to us.
But we need to toughen up a bit, brothers and sisters. We need to toughen up a bit, because sometimes God wants to speak a word that is hard.
Now, I caution those who like to speak hard words also: we had best be praying before we go. Oftentimes, if we are praying long enough and we are on our knees long enough, God changes that brother or sister’s heart without us having to say a word.
But sometimes brothers and sisters need to come to one another and say, “You know, brother, the way you talk is really offensive.” If God is calling us to do that, we need to do that.
And we have to learn how to receive that from the Lord, take that, and then go to the Lord and consider it before Him: “Lord, what they said, is that really true? Let me know if it is really true.”
But sometimes we just do not want to hear. We do not want to go to the Lord because we are afraid of what we are going to hear. We are afraid that we are going to have to change direction.
In the fifteenth verse of that same chapter, it says:
Look therefore carefully how ye walk,
not as unwise, but as wise;
redeeming the time,
because the days are evil.
Wherefore be ye not foolish,
but understand what the will of the Lord is.
It says, “Walk circumspectly.” That means walk diligently. I remember again when I was in the service, I was walking down the street one day, just sort of moseying down the road.
I think it was a lieutenant or captain who came up alongside me. He said, “Trooper, walk like you are going someplace.”
There is a difference. Sometimes in this life, we just sort of meander around—just sort of meander around the Christian life—with no real purpose. We are not walking diligently, walking in a direction, with purpose, with a goal in mind. We are just sort of going through it.
That is why it says, “Walk circumspectly. Walk diligently.”
Because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. The days that we are living in right now—we do not have any time to waste. We have no time to waste. The Lord is at the door. We had best know what the will of the Lord is.
This whole issue of the walk has to deal with every area of your life: whether it be at work, in school, or in your relationships. Is your walk such that the life of God is increasing in you and in the people that you have contact with?
Lastly, in 1 John 2:5-6:
But whoso keepeth His word,
in him verily hath the love of God been perfected.
Hereby we know that we are in Him:
he that saith he abideth in Him
ought himself also to walk even as He walked.
Whoever keeps His Word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. That is something of what we said before. We need to be able to hear the Lord, be able to walk in repentance, so that the Word of God would really dwell within us and be perfected in us.
By this we know that we are in Him: he who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked. Now, we can read that and throw up our hands and say, “You must be kidding. This is impossible.”
But the only reason He can say that to us is because He has provided it for us: the life that can walk the walk. That is what He is calling us to do—to believe in this other life.
So this issue of the walk is very, very important. That is what God, I believe, is wanting to speak to our hearts today.
So, dear Lord, we pray that by Your Spirit these words would really penetrate us and take hold of us, and that we would repent and walk in repentance, and that the Word of God would take flesh in us, as it were, Lord.
Lord, just show us our hearts.
We trust that You will do this, dear Lord, because of Your great love for us. And we thank You in the most precious name of Thy wonderful Son, the Lord Jesus.