This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.~1 John 2:6
We have all heard the phrase “he talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk.” We usually use this expression to describe someone who is phony, faulty, fake. Get the picture? Well, at one point I thought I got the picture. It wasn’t until God slammed a simple (yet critical) truth in my face that I realized I had been doing exactly that—talking the talk but not truly walking the Walk. I had become the fake. I was now the phony. Something quite desperately needed to change in my life.
You may have already guessed that I am not talking about a physical walk, but a spiritual one. Scripture frequently uses the analogy of walking to depict the every day decisions and actions we make in our lives (Read Psalms or Proverbs, they are FILLED with walking analogies!). Ultimately, those choices then determine where our walk leads us—closer to God, or farther from Him.
I was in a funk. When God first struck me with the truth of 1 John 2:6, I couldn’t understand why I felt like I had been missing something. I knew I was saved, so why did that verse make me feel so unsettled? Then I stared more closely at the last four words of the passage: walk as Jesus did. LIGHTBULB! It was right there. Plain and simple. I had been so caught up in making sure I sounded “good” in front of others by knowing the biblical truths that I had forgotten to put those very same truths into practice.
James 1:22 commands us against this too: “Do no merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” It can’t get any clearer than that, folks. James goes on to compare someone who forgets what they look like after staring at a mirror to someone who hears the Word but doesn’t live it. That sounds pretty silly, but James is onto something profound. What he says there actually makes logical sense. As Christians, we should know whom we are representing. (This is not a trick question) That’s right, Christ!
You might be wondering, “Wait, I thought we were talking about walking with God, not looking like God?” Well, I have learned in my own relationship with Him that these two truths go hand-in-hand. Here’s how: the more we walk with God, the more we look like God. Basically, when we live according to the example God has given to us in His Word then others will see Him in us. Our lives will no longer reflect the sinful desires of our hearts but the righteous desires of His.
But this still begs the question, “How then are we to walk as Jesus did?” There is no short answer for this one, but there is something we can all do that, in turn, will answer the question. We can get to know Jesus. That’s right, get to really know Him. Read about His life in the Gospels then make the active choice each day to live like He did. Pray for guidance, and He will show you which step you should take along this Walk. The famous acronym W.W.J.D. will take on deeper meaning when we decide to genuinely ask the question, “What would Jesus do?” and act on it accordingly. Then we can say we are walking like Jesus.
- Dominique
We have all heard the phrase “he talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk.” We usually use this expression to describe someone who is phony, faulty, fake. Get the picture? Well, at one point I thought I got the picture. It wasn’t until God slammed a simple (yet critical) truth in my face that I realized I had been doing exactly that—talking the talk but not truly walking the Walk. I had become the fake. I was now the phony. Something quite desperately needed to change in my life.
You may have already guessed that I am not talking about a physical walk, but a spiritual one. Scripture frequently uses the analogy of walking to depict the every day decisions and actions we make in our lives (Read Psalms or Proverbs, they are FILLED with walking analogies!). Ultimately, those choices then determine where our walk leads us—closer to God, or farther from Him.
I was in a funk. When God first struck me with the truth of 1 John 2:6, I couldn’t understand why I felt like I had been missing something. I knew I was saved, so why did that verse make me feel so unsettled? Then I stared more closely at the last four words of the passage: walk as Jesus did. LIGHTBULB! It was right there. Plain and simple. I had been so caught up in making sure I sounded “good” in front of others by knowing the biblical truths that I had forgotten to put those very same truths into practice.
James 1:22 commands us against this too: “Do no merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” It can’t get any clearer than that, folks. James goes on to compare someone who forgets what they look like after staring at a mirror to someone who hears the Word but doesn’t live it. That sounds pretty silly, but James is onto something profound. What he says there actually makes logical sense. As Christians, we should know whom we are representing. (This is not a trick question) That’s right, Christ!
You might be wondering, “Wait, I thought we were talking about walking with God, not looking like God?” Well, I have learned in my own relationship with Him that these two truths go hand-in-hand. Here’s how: the more we walk with God, the more we look like God. Basically, when we live according to the example God has given to us in His Word then others will see Him in us. Our lives will no longer reflect the sinful desires of our hearts but the righteous desires of His.
But this still begs the question, “How then are we to walk as Jesus did?” There is no short answer for this one, but there is something we can all do that, in turn, will answer the question. We can get to know Jesus. That’s right, get to really know Him. Read about His life in the Gospels then make the active choice each day to live like He did. Pray for guidance, and He will show you which step you should take along this Walk. The famous acronym W.W.J.D. will take on deeper meaning when we decide to genuinely ask the question, “What would Jesus do?” and act on it accordingly. Then we can say we are walking like Jesus.
- Dominique