Sit, Walk, Stand

Ephesians 2:4-6

Many times in our Christian walk, we speak of resting in the Lord as if it is something that we should do after we are completely exhausted from the cares of this life. It is made to sound as if we finally sit down and take our ease in Christ only after we have worked sufficiently for Him in one capacity or the other. The order usually goes something like this: Stand up for the Lord in front of the world and take the blows; then walk softly before God and stay on the straight and narrow; and finally, someday, when it is all said and done, we will sit together with Him in heaven. Paul paints quite a different picture.

The order of events, according to the Apostle Paul, is designed by the Holy Spirit, for nothing happens in the Word by chance. Paul shows us what I call the “2-4-6” method of Christian experience. Watch it unfold:

Sit – “And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (2:6).

Walk – “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called” (4:1).

Stand – “Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (6:11).

We actually start out defeated and beaten somewhere on the road of life, and then Jesus “raised us up together” (2:6). This is a type of our salvation experience, where the Good Samaritan cares for us along life’s highway. The first thing that He does is sit us next to Jesus. The starting point for every believer is resting next to the Master. Only when we have learned to rest with Him in His finished work are we qualified to “walk worthy” (4:1).

The “walk” is now made easier because we are accustomed to being so close to Him in proximity. You need not fear that you are going to wander off of the “straight and narrow”. Even if you do go down into a valley of the shadow of death, your Shepherd will enter it with you, and He will not abandon you in the midst.

Once we have placed our daily walk in the Lord, we are ready to stand when the enemy begins his attack. Interestingly enough, there is no mention here of the believer fighting back. Some have preached sermons on spiritual warfare, calling for militant Christians to “attack the devil”. Paul tells the believer to “be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might” (6:10), showing us that all of the battle belongs to the Lord and none of it belongs to us.

In Christ, He does the fighting and we get the victory. What a Savior! While we certainly wrestle (6:12), when it comes to the attack of the enemy, we simply stand there, while Christ takes care of us (6:13, 14). Consequently, the Holy Spirit is careful to let us know that we will stand in the “evil day”. Note that it is singular, for whatever bad comes our way, it is temporary. When God blesses the believer, it is always with “good days”, used in the plural, for they will last for all time (1 Peter 3:10).

The Walk of the Believer

Ephesians 4:17-25

Even though the Apostle Paul was a preacher of radical grace, he in no way endorsed sinful lifestyles or failure on the part of believers. He was accused of this sort of doctrine however, as he tells us in Romans 3:8, “…we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say, ‘Let us do evil, that good may come’…” However, Paul’s approach towards getting believers to live right was different than what many people then, and just as many now, tend to use. He felt that an introduction of law preaching and teaching into believer’s lives would cause sin to revive in them (Romans 7:9). It is for this cause that when Paul wanted to emphasize a lifestyle problem in his churches, he introduced a different tactic.

Paul maintained that believers were already complete in Christ (Colossians 2:10), but that their minds were lagging behind their hearts. He felt that if a believer thought like a believer, he would live like one, but if he thought like a sinner, then he would see sin take root. He told the church at Ephesus to “walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind” (Ephesians 4:17). Sinners walk according to a mind “void of truth” which is what “vanity” means in Greek. They have their “understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart” (Ephesians 4:18). Again, Paul is showing the saints that in many ways they are acting like sinners through their lifestyles. Now, he appeals to who they truly are:

“But ye have not so learned Christ” (Ephesians 4:20).

With this statement, Paul introduces a three-fold plan for the believer to live right:

1. Put off the old man and the way he lived, which was according to his lusts and desires (verse 22).

2. Renew the way they think, concentrating on who Jesus is in them (verse 23).

3. Put on the righteousness of God which is Jesus Christ (verse 24).

When you do these things, it will lead you to live right which is why the next verses begin to give instruction on not lying, not letting our anger get the best of us, not allowing Satan a foot hold in our life, not stealing, etc. Why doesn’t he just say, “Thou shalt not lie”, or “Thou shalt not steal”? Surely that would be easier, right? That would be Old Covenant preaching, and Paul is better than that. Instead, he appeals to who you are in Christ, and convinces you to change how you think of yourself. When we do this, we put away lying and stealing and everything else because we stop thinking like sinners and start thinking like the sons which we are.

Go in God’s wonderful grace and mercy today, putting off who you used to be by knowing who Jesus has made you to be. Renew your mind on His wonderful finished work. Stop thinking like you thought as a sinner and see your heavenly Father as well pleased with you, His adopted son or daughter.

How to Walk in Power

Galatians 3:5

Galatians 3 is a harsh rebuke by the Apostle Paul to the church at Galatia, and it is very telling about Paul’s attitude toward the gospel. The rebuke of “O foolish Galatians” which leads off the chapter does not come as the result of spiritual laziness or some sort of sin. Instead, Paul rebukes them for mixing the message of pure grace with that of works and law. He says, “Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3)

A misconception that is attached to the power of God is closely related to this attitude by the Galatian church. Many believe that when someone operates under the anointing in preaching or teaching or they have wonderful miracles come out of their ministry, that they must live a holier life or have some higher form of sanctification. This leads people to try to “pay the price” for power in their life and an increased emphasis on works is soon to follow.

Paul debunks this theory when he asks them about the power that rests on the preachers and miracle workers in their midst, “Doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” (Galatians 3:5) Is it the keeping of the law to a greater degree than his peers that causes this man to preach with authority or operate in the gifts of the Spirit? Paul’s answer is found in the last part of the question, “the hearing of faith”.

God does not “reward” the worker of the law with great anointing or signs, wonders and miracles. The more that the believer hears of Christ and His finished work and they learn to rest in that work, the more that they are used of the Spirit, for there is no dependency in their own heart on their performance. They do not fear being accepted of God and they know that they do not earn what Jesus has already paid for. The knowledge that they are loved and forgiven keeps them qualified in their minds to be used of God, and this hearing of the faith brings the power of the Holy Spirit out in them.

This was common knowledge among the disciples, but not so much among the laity. When Peter and John came into the temple in Jerusalem at the gate called Beautiful, they were met by a lame beggar, asking alms. Peter made the now famous statement, “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk” (Acts 3:6). The man was healed instantly and the people looked on Peter and John, “greatly wondering” (Acts 3:11).

Peter senses that in the wondering of the people, they are convinced that they are looking at two great and mighty men. He says to them, “Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? Or why look you so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?” (Acts 3:12). Note the phrase, “by our own power or holiness”. Peter knows that the people think that he and John are powerful and further, that they have paid some sort of “holiness” price to be used so mightily of God. This is the same attitude that Paul is confronting in Galatians 3, and it should be confronted again today!

When God uses someone, there has certainly been a price paid, but not one of works, otherwise God would owe that man or woman the power and the anointing (Romans 4:4). The price that has been paid is the hearing of faith. When you hear of what God thinks about you and you embrace it, you become usable by the Father.

Know what He thinks of you, and be prepared to watch God move in a mighty way.

Sit, Walk, Stand

Ephesians 2:4-6

Many times in our Christian walk, we speak of resting in the Lord as if it is something that we should do after we are completely exhausted from the cares of this life. It is made to sound as if we finally sit down and take our ease in Christ only after we have worked sufficiently for Him in one capacity or the other. The order usually goes something like this: Stand up for the Lord in front of the world and take the blows; then walk softly before God and stay on the straight and narrow; and finally, someday, when it is all said and done, we will sit together with Him in heaven. Paul paints quite a different picture.

The order of events, according to the Apostle Paul, is designed by the Holy Spirit, for nothing happens in the Word by chance. Paul shows us what I call the “2-4-6” method of Christian experience. Watch it unfold:

Sit – “And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (2:6).

Walk – “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called” (4:1).

Stand – “Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (6:11).

We actually start out defeated and beaten somewhere on the road of life, and then Jesus “raised us up together” (2:6). This is a type of our salvation experience, where the Good Samaritan cares for us along life’s highway. The first thing that He does is sit us next to Jesus. The starting point for every believer is resting next to the Master. Only when we have learned to rest with Him in His finished work are we qualified to “walk worthy” (4:1).

The “walk” is now made easier because we are accustomed to being so close to Him in proximity. You need not fear that you are going to wander off of the “straight and narrow”. Even if you do go down into a valley of the shadow of death, your Shepherd will enter it with you, and He will not abandon you in the midst.

Once we have placed our daily walk in the Lord, we are ready to stand when the enemy begins his attack. Interestingly enough, there is no mention here of the believer fighting back. Some have preached sermons on spiritual warfare, calling for militant Christians to “attack the devil”. Paul tells the believer to “be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might” (6:10), showing us that all of the battle belongs to the Lord and none of it belongs to us.

In Christ, He does the fighting and we get the victory. What a Savior! While we certainly wrestle (6:12), when it comes to the attack of the enemy, we simply stand there, while Christ takes care of us (6:13, 14). Consequently, the Holy Spirit is careful to let us know that we will stand in the “evil day”. Note that it is singular, for whatever bad comes our way, it is temporary. When God blesses the believer, it is always with “good days”, used in the plural, for they will last for all time (1 Peter 3:10).

The Walk of the Believer

Ephesians 4:17-25

Even though the Apostle Paul was a preacher of radical grace, he in no way endorsed sinful lifestyles or failure on the part of believers. He was accused of this sort of doctrine however, as he tells us in Romans 3:8, “…we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say, ‘Let us do evil, that good may come’…” However, Paul’s approach towards getting believers to live right was different than what many people then, and just as many now, tend to use. He felt that an introduction of law preaching and teaching into believer’s lives would cause sin to revive in them (Romans 7:9). It is for this cause that when Paul wanted to emphasize a lifestyle problem in his churches, he introduced a different tactic.

Paul maintained that believers were already complete in Christ (Colossians 2:10), but that their minds were lagging behind their hearts. He felt that if a believer thought like a believer, he would live like one, but if he thought like a sinner, then he would see sin take root. He told the church at Ephesus to “walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind” (Ephesians 4:17). Sinners walk according to a mind “void of truth” which is what “vanity” means in Greek. They have their “understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart” (Ephesians 4:18). Again, Paul is showing the saints that in many ways they are acting like sinners through their lifestyles. Now, he appeals to who they truly are:

“But ye have not so learned Christ” (Ephesians 4:20).

With this statement, Paul introduces a three-fold plan for the believer to live right:

1. Put off the old man and the way he lived, which was according to his lusts and desires (verse 22).

2. Renew the way they think, concentrating on who Jesus is in them (verse 23).

3. Put on the righteousness of God which is Jesus Christ (verse 24).

When you do these things, it will lead you to live right which is why the next verses begin to give instruction on not lying, not letting our anger get the best of us, not allowing Satan a foot hold in our life, not stealing, etc. Why doesn’t he just say, “Thou shalt not lie”, or “Thou shalt not steal”? Surely that would be easier, right? That would be Old Covenant preaching, and Paul is better than that. Instead, he appeals to who you are in Christ, and convinces you to change how you think of yourself. When we do this, we put away lying and stealing and everything else because we stop thinking like sinners and start thinking like the sons which we are.

Go in God’s wonderful grace and mercy today, putting off who you used to be by knowing who Jesus has made you to be. Renew your mind on His wonderful finished work. Stop thinking like you thought as a sinner and see your heavenly Father as well pleased with you, His adopted son or daughter.

How to Walk in Power

Galatians 3:5

Galatians 3 is a harsh rebuke by the Apostle Paul to the church at Galatia, and it is very telling about Paul’s attitude toward the gospel. The rebuke of “O foolish Galatians” which leads off the chapter does not come as the result of spiritual laziness or some sort of sin. Instead, Paul rebukes them for mixing the message of pure grace with that of works and law. He says, “Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3)

A misconception that is attached to the power of God is closely related to this attitude by the Galatian church. Many believe that when someone operates under the anointing in preaching or teaching or they have wonderful miracles come out of their ministry, that they must live a holier life or have some higher form of sanctification. This leads people to try to “pay the price” for power in their life and an increased emphasis on works is soon to follow.

Paul debunks this theory when he asks them about the power that rests on the preachers and miracle workers in their midst, “Doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” (Galatians 3:5) Is it the keeping of the law to a greater degree than his peers that causes this man to preach with authority or operate in the gifts of the Spirit? Paul’s answer is found in the last part of the question, “the hearing of faith”.

God does not “reward” the worker of the law with great anointing or signs, wonders and miracles. The more that the believer hears of Christ and His finished work and they learn to rest in that work, the more that they are used of the Spirit, for there is no dependency in their own heart on their performance. They do not fear being accepted of God and they know that they do not earn what Jesus has already paid for. The knowledge that they are loved and forgiven keeps them qualified in their minds to be used of God, and this hearing of the faith brings the power of the Holy Spirit out in them.

This was common knowledge among the disciples, but not so much among the laity. When Peter and John came into the temple in Jerusalem at the gate called Beautiful, they were met by a lame beggar, asking alms. Peter made the now famous statement, “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk” (Acts 3:6). The man was healed instantly and the people looked on Peter and John, “greatly wondering” (Acts 3:11).

Peter senses that in the wondering of the people, they are convinced that they are looking at two great and mighty men. He says to them, “Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? Or why look you so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?” (Acts 3:12). Note the phrase, “by our own power or holiness”. Peter knows that the people think that he and John are powerful and further, that they have paid some sort of “holiness” price to be used so mightily of God. This is the same attitude that Paul is confronting in Galatians 3, and it should be confronted again today!

When God uses someone, there has certainly been a price paid, but not one of works, otherwise God would owe that man or woman the power and the anointing (Romans 4:4). The price that has been paid is the hearing of faith. When you hear of what God thinks about you and you embrace it, you become usable by the Father.

Know what He thinks of you, and be prepared to watch God move in a mighty way.

Sit, Walk, Stand

Ephesians 2:4-6

Many times in our Christian walk, we speak of resting in the Lord as if it is something that we should do after we are completely exhausted from the cares of this life. It is made to sound as if we finally sit down and take our ease in Christ only after we have worked sufficiently for Him in one capacity or the other. The order usually goes something like this: Stand up for the Lord in front of the world and take the blows; then walk softly before God and stay on the straight and narrow; and finally, someday, when it is all said and done, we will sit together with Him in heaven. Paul paints quite a different picture.

The order of events, according to the Apostle Paul, is designed by the Holy Spirit, for nothing happens in the Word by chance. Paul shows us what I call the “2-4-6” method of Christian experience. Watch it unfold:

Sit – “And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (2:6).

Walk – “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called” (4:1).

Stand – “Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (6:11).

We actually start out defeated and beaten somewhere on the road of life, and then Jesus “raised us up together” (2:6). This is a type of our salvation experience, where the Good Samaritan cares for us along life’s highway. The first thing that He does is sit us next to Jesus. The starting point for every believer is resting next to the Master. Only when we have learned to rest with Him in His finished work are we qualified to “walk worthy” (4:1).

The “walk” is now made easier because we are accustomed to being so close to Him in proximity. You need not fear that you are going to wander off of the “straight and narrow”. Even if you do go down into a valley of the shadow of death, your Shepherd will enter it with you, and He will not abandon you in the midst.

Once we have placed our daily walk in the Lord, we are ready to stand when the enemy begins his attack. Interestingly enough, there is no mention here of the believer fighting back. Some have preached sermons on spiritual warfare, calling for militant Christians to “attack the devil”. Paul tells the believer to “be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might” (6:10), showing us that all of the battle belongs to the Lord and none of it belongs to us.

In Christ, He does the fighting and we get the victory. What a Savior! While we certainly wrestle (6:12), when it comes to the attack of the enemy, we simply stand there, while Christ takes care of us (6:13, 14). Consequently, the Holy Spirit is careful to let us know that we will stand in the “evil day”. Note that it is singular, for whatever bad comes our way, it is temporary. When God blesses the believer, it is always with “good days”, used in the plural, for they will last for all time (1 Peter 3:10).