The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
“His Walk, Our Walk”
In yesterday’s message, we mentioned that the Lord Jesus Christ walked to His cross in His physical body, and from the cross in His spiritual body, the church.
“And it came to pass, when the time was come that He should be received up, He stedfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51).
“I will dwell in them and walk in them” (II Corinthians 6:16).
A perfectly faithful and vibrantly active Spirit of Christ dwells in His people. He lives in us, that we may live by Him. No act of obedience originates in us, but rather proceeds by our Lord’s motivating, guiding, and enabling presence. We play a vital role in the process, freely trusting and submitting to Him in the response of faith and submission. Obedience does not happen as a programmed inevitability in any believer. Nor does it originate with us, however, as the Apostle Paul plainly stated to the Philippians…
“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13).
Our Heavenly Father works in believers so vitally and powerfully that He alone receives glory for our doings. However, He leaves a role for us so involved and real that Christians will one day be rewarded for things done in the body (I Corinthians 1:31; 3:14). We live in a real relationship with Him that requires both His proactive work of grace, and our responsive determination of faith. How His walking in us coalesces and moves in tandem with our walk by Him requires a lifetime of discovery regarding God’s role and our own. We know “His way is perfect.” We equally know our ways in response are a work in progress, requiring growth in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus (II Samuel 22:31; II Peter 3:18). We focus on the faithfulness of the One who walks in us, seeking to become more faithful in our own walk with Him. “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2).
The holy One who “set His face to go to Jerusalem" now dwells and walks in us through the power of His finished work of the cross, the empty tomb, and the imparting of the Holy Spirit to all who believe. To the degree we know the immeasurable measure of “so great salvation” will be the degree to which our faithful response becomes more consistent (Hebrews 12:2). Christ lives in us, that we live through Him, having walked to His cross long ago in His physical body, and now presently walking from the cross in His spiritual body, the church. Including this present moment, as we marvel in the Savior who died for us that He might live and walk in us that we may live and walk by Him.
“Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us.”
(Ephesians 5:2)
“The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us.”
(Romans 5:5)
Weekly Memory Verse
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
(Hebrews 11:1)
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