A Closer Walk
Our walk. We Christians use the term our walk to describe life after our salvation. The phrase may originate here: "I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called," Ephesians 4:1 NASB. Our walk could describe the approach to life we strive for as spoken of by the next verse. "with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love," Ephesians 4:2 NASB.
Our walk, or more properly our walk with Jesus, represents the entirety of our time on earth after salvation. Hopefully during this time we are walking hand in hand with the Lord Jesus. We always walk with the Holy Spirit because He dwells in us. And the Apostle Paul offers us this reminder, "for we walk by faith, not by sight," 2 Corinthians 5:7 NASB. What does it mean to walk by faith? We have faith in the fact that because of the finished and complete work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross we have peace with God. We are no longer vessels destined for God's wrath. We can have utter faith that whatever our God commands us to do is for our good and His glory. Walking by faith could also mean that we know that when we need our God's help He will be there. Re-read Psalm 23.
How can we live out the command to "...walk in a manner worthy of your calling?" Well, perhaps at the very least it could mean that as children of God we wouldn't want to do anything that would reflect badly on the Kingdom of God. We might want to try to keep our way straight and our path narrow. Our example, our role model, is the Lord Jesus Christ. We are to walk in His footsteps. Walk the path that He puts before us. And to do it in a manner worthy of our calling.
Small town living seems to be helpful for us in trying to walk in a worthy manner. In a big city a person can get lost in the shuffle; lost in the crowd. In a small town we may run into our Pastor at the grocery store, or the doctor's office. Or we might encounter a pastor from another church in the same places. We see our friends and neighbors while being out and about. People we know from the hospital or the school or some place of business. These people we encounter in our daily lives help to keep our walk worthy of our calling because they are witnesses of our behavior and attitude. They help us to follow the example set by our Lord and Savior. Because we see them walking their straight and narrow, it encourages us to walk our own straight and narrow.
We desire to walk in a manner worthy of our calling because of our gratitude for all that is and has been done for us by Almighty God. However we may not recognize some blessings as being blessings. The classic hymn “Count Your Blessings,” offers us help with that. “Count your blessings, Name them one by one, Count your blessings, see what God hath done; Count your blessings, Name them one by one, And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done,” “Count Your Blessings,” by Johnson Oatman Jr., 1856-1922.
Count your blessings, name them one by one. Making a list of our blessings (though numerous and varied) would enable us to better recognize all our blessings. Including those that at the time we considered to be not blessings at all. We might see where the Lord was at work in us and on us and with us; even though we didn't understand back then. To walk in a manner worthy of our calling would certainly include expressing gratitude to a loving, gracious, merciful, and generous God.
We are called to walk in a manner worthy of our calling. Because of our God-given freedom, liberty, and free will each of us gets to figure out how that works for us. To God be the glory, Great things He hath done!