life (Rom. 6 :4); of walking honest ly (Rom. 13:13); of walking in the Spirit (Gal. 5:16); of walk ing worthy of God’s vocation (Eph. 4 :1 ) ; of walking in love (Eph. 5 :2 ) ; of walking as the children of light (Eph. 5 :8 ); of walking worthy of the Lord (Col, 1:10); of walking in wisdom (Col. 4 :5 ); and of walking worthy of God (I Thess. 2:12). God is obviously concerned about the walk of the Christian. By this we mean the whole conduct we follow as we live our daily lives. Conduct is a general term for the total believer. Walking implies progress, moving ahead with Christ. As born again Christians now belonging to Him, we are to imitate God. God is In finitely loving, by which He com municates Himself to mankind. The Lord doesn’t call an unbeliever to imitate His love. The fact is, the human heart without Jesus Christ cannot produce divine love; it can only experience it. Those who name the name of Christ must become channels through whom the love of God is able to flow to the lives of others (Rom. 5:5). Ephesians 5:2 gives us God’s di vine example. Love motivated the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. It’s sad to see so much bickering, envy, gossiping, backbiting, trouble and difficulty that there is among Chris tian people. This ought not to be. One of the hallmarks of our salva tion should be love. It covers a multi tude of sins. Love is never happy when someone else gets into trouble, no matter who it is. It’s too easy to become so self-satisfied that we’re little concerned about the needs of people. A Christian is one who truly puts love first in his life. We’re to walk in the light of God (Eph. 5:3-18). Light is a symbol of God’s nature. He is infinitely holy. Light is also a wonderful symbol of His Word. To “walk in the light” simply means to order your life by the standards of God’s holiness and truth. The moral standards of the 17
C hapter T hree I T IS THROUGH the Spirit of God that an individual is born again. There’s a whole new vista opened up for the child of God. We are exhort ed to identify ourselves with the Lord so that we can experience spir itual victory instead of spiritual de feat. In Romans 6:11, we find the fact that the believer is to respond to the Lord in this life of spiritual surrender as we consider ourselves to be dead unto sin, “but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” We have died unto the old life, and are now resurrected to new life in Christ Jesus. In verses 12 and 13 Paul makes it crystal-clear that sin is not to reign or to rule in our bodies. We’re not to yield our bodies as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. The Holy Spirit, the moment you believe in Christ, comes to take up His abode to give us the enablement for vic tory each day. This comes from a total yieldness of all that we are to the Saviour. He must have full con trol of us. This means our intellect, emotions, and will are to be placed in the unconditional control of the Holy Spirit. In Ephesians 5:1 to 18, there is a tremendous passage showing how we are exhorted to be very careful about the way we live before the people of the world. It’s been well said that a man’s Sunday-self and his weekday- self are like the two halves of a round-trip ticket. That is one is not good if either one is detached. There needs to be a consistent, attractive, and yet uncompromising Christian life. We need no revision of the standards for C h ris tian living. They’re quite fixed and clearly taught in the Word of God. What we need are people who, through the power of the Holy Spirit, put these essen tials into practical focus. We’re to be walking in the love of God as Christians. The New T estam en t speaks about walking in newness of
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