Christian Life—A Walk with Christ I P you are on holiday in our beau tiful West country, I have no doubt that amongst the happiest memories By Rev. B. C. Gough*
walk with the Lord, nor do they drift into such a life, no more than a person drifts into marriage. You only start a wholehearted walk with Christ when you receive Him as your personal Sa viour and Lord. He has to be your Saviour, before He can be your Friend. You see, there is one thing that makes it quite impossible for you to walk in fellowship with the sinless Son of God; it is your sins, which “have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you.” Just as oil and water cannot mix, so man, uncleansed from sin, cannot walk with the Lord. But in order that you may be restored to fellowship with God, in His great love “ Christ . . . once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.” Do you remem ber how the children’s hymn puts it? “ He knew how wicked man had been, And knew that God must punish sin; So, out of pity, Jesus said He’d bear the punishment instead.” So that if you will receive Christ as your own personal Saviour and Lord tonight, you may begin to walk in Him. Only remember, receiving Him implies repentance, whereby we forsake sin, as the Catechism puts it. When a woman takes a man as her husband, she not only enters upon the new state of mar ried life, but she also renounces the old single estate she once enjoyed; In the same way, when a person takes Christ as Saviour and Lord, he not only enters upon a new walk through life with Him, but also renounces the old life of self- pleasing and sin. In fact, salvation is very much like marriage. It is a contract between two parties, a solemn one, a lifelong one. May I adapt the wording of the mar riage service, and ask you a question? “Wilt thou have this Saviour to be thine own Saviour and Lord? Wilt thou obey Him and serve Him, and forsaking all others keep only unto Him?” Do I hear your answer—“ I will” ? Then make a definite contract with Him now. “ I, John/Mary [insert your own name] take Thee, O Christ, as my Sa viour and Lord, to have and to hold from this day forward.” Let us turn this into a prayer— “ 0 Lord, who art calling me to walk with Thee, I repent of my sins, and take Thee into my life as my Saviour, whose precious Blood cleanseth me from all sin. I submit to Thee as my Lord, whose service is perfect freedom. Do Thou teach me to walk with Thee, henceforth and for evermore. Amen.” *Hatherleigh Parish Church, North Devon., England
of Jesus. Our walk with Christ may be so close that the power of His indwelling Holy Spirit imparts inward strength to the believer. Just as the vine imparts inward life to its branches, so that they produce fruit even in adverse weather conditions, so Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith imparts His risen life to the Christian. As our Lord said, “ I am the vine, ye are the branches; he that abideth in Me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.” Fellow- Christian, are you facing adverse weather conditions in your life? Then let Christ produce His fruit of love, joy, peace, longsuffering and gentleness through your life. Look up to Him, just where you are, perhaps in your bed in the hospital, and say: “ Lord, live Thy life through me—impart Thy strength to me.” And He will. For walking in Christ is not just imitating Christ, though, as John wrote, “ He that . . . abideth in [Christ] ought him self also so to walk even as He walked.” Walking in Christ implies the repro duction from within of His risen life through us, so that “ the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.” This is holiness, as the Bible calls it, or Christlikeness; this is the goal of the redeemed life, which will be completed when Christ comes back again in person, and “we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.” Here’s another thing that walking in Christ means. It means walking in step with Christ. “How can two walk to gether, except they be agreed?” Our Lord is the Captain of our salvation, and we must walk in step with Him; It’s a miserable experience, isn’t it, walking out of step with someone? I remember I used to walk to school with a friend who took a longer stride than I did. So I found that in order to enjoy walking with him, I had to alter my stride. Walking with Christ often means altering our stride to keep in step with Him. It means doing what He says— “ For why call ye Me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” Christ’s teaching, for example, on neighbourli ness or almsgiving or Sunday observ ance is very different from our own. So we must adjust our step to His, if we are to walk with Him. But I wonder if you are saying to yourself rather wistfully, as one listener wrote to me: “ Life sounds so lovely and brave and wonderful with Christ as Companion.” But you have to admit, if you are really honest, that your life is not like that. The text states: “ As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so . . .” People do not by nature
you will take away with you will be some of the walks you are taking. And it’s about walking—walking with Christ— that I believe God would have me write. For, basically, the Christian life is a walk with Christ. Do you remember these words from St. Paul’s letter to the Colos- sians, the second chapter and the sixth verse? “ As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him.” What does it mean to walk in Christ, and how can we do it? In the first place, it means to walk in fellowship with Christ. We all know the difference it makes to a walk to have the right friend beside us, one who is congenial and understanding; one, per haps, who has taken the walk before and knows its pleasures and its pitfalls. To walk through life in fellowship with our Lord Jesus Christ is to have just such a Travelling Companion. We have an Unseen Friend in times of loneli ness; for He is “ a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” We have a Leader in times of perplexity; for “when He putteth forth His own sheep, He goeth before them, and the sheep follow Him.” The Friendship of Christ, like all friendships, needs to be cultivated. This is accomplished by prayer when we talk to Him about the walk of our daily life, its joys, its sorrows, its opportunities, its problems. Try walking with Christ, not just at your set prayer times in the morning and evening, but at any odd moments in the day, as you travel to work in the morning, or do the wash ing-up, or dig your garden. That’s how we practice the presence of Christ. But we must not do all the talking. We must give Him a chance to talk to us. He does this through the pages of the Bible, God’s Word, which is like a letter from our Best Friend, if only we’d resolve to read it every day. Just as we get to know our human friends by talking to each other as we walk, in the same way we get to know our Heavenly Friend by this two-sided form of conversation we call prayer and Bible-reading. But “walking in Christ,” as Paul describes the Christian life, means more than walking in fellowship with Him. it means walking in the strength of Christ; living our lives in the strength of Another, being able to say from real experience “ I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me,” or, as Dr. Way puts it, “ I am equal to every lot, through the help of Him who gives me inward strength.” Faith is simply leaning on the arms
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