"Being and Doing"

    I recently discussed with a friend the matter of being and doing, as taught in Scripture.  It's an interesting consideration, and one that the Bible often addresses.

    "Now are ye light in the Lord; walk as children of light" (Ephesians 5:8).

    Through the indwelling presence of Christ, "the light of the world," born again believers in the Lord Jesus are light (John 8:12).  That is, we are His lamps.  This being is given to us as a free gift whereby God constitutes us as "new creatures" in the innermost heart of our identity (II Corinthians 5:17).  Nothing changes, or can change this blessed truth of who we are in Christ, and who He is in us.

    Our walk, however, constitutes a different matter.  We may or may not think, believe, speak, act and relate in accordance with who we are.  We should, of course, and the power of the Holy Spirit is always available to us in order to unite and correlate our being and doing.  Nevertheless, it remains possible in our present existence to act in contradiction to the person we most deeply are in Christ.  The Corinthian believers, for example, whom Paul strongly affirms as he opens his first epistle to them, are also decisively challenged as the letter continues.  "In everything ye are enriched by Him...  are ye not carnal, and walk as men?" (I Corinthians 1:5; 3:3). Their walk did not reveal and express their being.

    We rejoice in the freely given spiritual being birthed when we believed in the Lord Jesus.  "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:6).  We also recognize our privileged responsibility to live accordingly, as enabled by indwelling Spirit of the Lord Jesus.  "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16).  We are former ugly ducklings, as it were, who by grace were transformed into Christ-inhabited and enlivened swans when we believed.  This we must know, and this we apply by faith as we seek to live lives that honor our Savior.  Remembering and affirming these Biblical truths of being and doing will go far in enabling a growing experience of the expressions of our life revealing the essence of our life.

"If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit."
(Galatians 5:15)