Walking In The Light

Walking in the light has to do with keeping close enough to the Lord Jesus so that every step is ordered by Him.


Scripture: Colossians 1:10, I Thessalonians 2, I John 1:7, Ephesians, 4:32, Ephesians, 5:2, Ephesians 5:15

Transcript

Alright thank you very much, and hello again radio friends. How in the world are you? Everything Alright at your house today? Well, I know some days are not as good as others, and as the case is, you may have struck a rough one. If that is so, look up right now and say, “Lord Jesus, see me through this one”, and He will. The Bible says, “For He hath said, ‘I will never leave thee nor forsake thee”.

My good friend Merv Roselle used to tell of the old Swedish brother and a church he served many years ago up in, in Minnesota, who use quote it, “He’ll never sake me nor forleave me”. Alright, however you want to put it, bless your heart. Believe it, that’s what counts. Jesus is yours and He will never leave you. He said, “I will not leave you orphans”. That word comfortless is our word orphans, “I won’t leave you orphans. I’ll come to you”, and the Spirit of God is yours today, to guide you into all truth beloved, so look up and trust the Lord even if you’ve struck a rough one, Alright? Alright.

Now, you and I are going on talking about this matter of Paul’s prayer. He said, “I pray that you’ll walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing”, and we’re looking into this matter of worthiness. Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, is something we talked about the last time we got together. Paul said, “Walk worthy of God”.

Now that is a big order isn’t it, that’s in first Thessalonians two, “Walk worthy of God”. Well, it is a big order and yet it’s not impossible. The point being that every parent wants his or her child, boy or girl, to live a life that will reflect well, let us say, on mother and dad. Isn’t that true? Of course it is.

You know, my father used to say to me as I went out as a high school lad, he’d look at me and he’d say, “Boy”, I stole from Victor Borge that line, “He always called me boy, he never could remember my name”, that’s Victor Borge’s line, but it’s always good for a chuckle. He said, “Boy, you’re going out, remember you bear my name”. Boy, it makes you think, doesn’t it? “Walk worthy of God who hath called you unto to His Kingdom and glory”.

It’s the relationship with God as your Father, relationship to God as King of the universe and you’re part of His Kingdom, and it’s your relationship to the effulgence of His glory. You don’t want to mar it or stain it or spoil it. Worthy of God means honor Him as your Father, obey Him as you King, shine for Him as part of the crown of glory that He so richly deserves. Worthy, walk worthy of God.

Well, what else? “Walk in love”, says Paul in Ephesians 5 :2, “Walk in love as Christ also hath loved us and have given Himself for us in offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling fragrance”, that’s Ephesians 5 and of course the verses that precede that tell us to forgive one another. Have you read that passage lately? “Walk in love”, he says, “as Christ hath loved us”, but in 4:32, the verses that just precede the passage I quoted, Paul said, “and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another even as God, for Christ’s sake hath forgiven, and be followers of God therefore, as dear children walk in love”.

See, to walk in God’s love means that you are going to be forgiving toward others as God forgave you. That’s the logic of it here. Many a person wishes that he or she knew more of the love of God. The reason they don’t is that they’re not willing to face the other prerequisite, which is to forgive, just like God forgave you and me.

Our Lord Jesus laid it out pretty straight in the days when He was with us here in the world, He said, “When ye stand praying, forgive if ye have ought against any, in order that your Father in Heaven may also forgive you, your trespasses, for if ye do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father in Heaven forgive you, your trespasses”. That was His dictum on the matter. Forgiveness and love and peace and grace and blessing all flow out of my willingness to treat another human being is God is treated me. Is that too big an order for some of you?

Somebody’s saying, “Brother Cook, you don’t know how deeply I’m hurt. You don’t know the terrible scar tissue I bear in my life. You don’t know what I’ve had to go through”, and you know, you’re right. How can I know? Even if I were acquainted with you, which in most cases is not true, we know each other through the radio only, but even if I were acquainted with you and were a close personal friend, I couldn’t even then begin to feel what you feel in those terribly wounded places in your own soul, and it hurts all the time, doesn’t it? And no amount of lecturing by someone like me is going to make you hurt any less. I know that.

But you see the grace of God comes in here. God forgave you. didn’t He? Did you hurt God? Did you disobey Him? Did you flee from Him? Did you go away instead of going His way? Did you go another direction? Did you resist the advances of His loving Holy Spirit? Yes, you did, and you wanted God to forgive you, didn’t you? And He did, for Jesus’ sake.

Now, Paul says, “Be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another even as God because of Jesus has forgiven you, and walk in love”. You say, “Brother Cook, I can’t”. Well maybe you can’t but Jesus can. If you’re Christian, where does the Lord Jesus live? In your heart by His Holy Spirit, right? Well then, if you can’t, He can. Paul said, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me”. You can do it because He could do it. Want to think about that and work on it? Walk in love, Ephesians 5:15 says, “Walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise”. Circumspectly means looking around you, be wide-awake.

Years ago I was in a camp and the leader of the camp said, “Fellas, look alive, the vultures are coming”. Well, what he meant was, you know, keep alert. My father used to say, “Keep your eyes peeled, boy”. However you want to say it, the point is life doesn’t have to take you by surprise.

My old boss, Vic Cory, had a saying which I think had a lot of truth to it, he said, “You don’t have to have a high coefficient of gullibility to be spiritual”. You don’t have to be gullible and naïve and easily taken in, in order to be spiritual. You can be with it, you can be knowledgeable, you can be up to date, you can know what’s going on, you can be sophisticated in the good sense, not in the nasty as snobby sense, but in a good sense you can be sophisticated knowing what’s going on in the world and being aware of it as a Christian ought to be aware. All of that can be true and you still walk with your Lord, “Walk circumspectly”, not foolishly, but wisely, looking around you.

I took some dual instruction in flying, years ago, with my good friend Paul Hartford. In those days he was operating a missionary flying service and he would fly some of us serving missionaries and Youth for Christ leaders around to various places in the North and South Hemisphere, and on some of these journeys I would get a little dual instruction. I remember the day I put his Beechcraft Bonanza into a secondary stall, and he lost no time in taking the controls away from because that airplane was on its way down, haha dear! But oh I enjoyed it though. One of the great disappointments of my life is that I never got my private pilot’s license, but then you can’t do everything, I guess.

So anyhow, I was getting some instruction from my good friend Paul Hartford. Dear man of God who knew airplanes, who knew the Lord, knew the mission field and knew human nature as well, and he said, “Now, one of the rules Bob, that you have to follow is to act as though your head were on a swivel”. He said, “You’ve got to be looking around you all the time. There’s never a time when you should not be looking about you to be aware of what’s there in the sky, so you don’t run into something”.

Well, I thought at the time, look at the big sky, and I don’t know why you have to be so, so pesky concerned about looking all the time, you got your heading straight, you’ve trimmed the aircraft out, you know where you’re going, you know how long it’ll take to get there, you know you have enough gas, you know the engine is running smoothly. Why do you have to be looking? But he continued to pound that into me.

Well of course as the years have gone by and the air has grown more and more crowded, we’ve had a lot of evidence of the fact that people need to be aware of what’s around them up there, so that you don’t have these tragic midair collisions, but the principle is there, circumspectly, looking around. He said, “Bob, your head needs to be as though it were on a swivel. Keep looking around you”. Why? You want to be aware of what’s going on. Life doesn’t have to take you by surprise. You don’t have to be a victim of the status quo. No, you don’t. You can be with it, you can be as the young people say, hip, you can know what’s going on, you can be knowledgeable, up to date, informed, and at the same time completely dedicated to the service of your Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the normal Christian life.

John says, “Walk in the light as He is in the light. If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son keeps on cleansing us from all sin”.

To walk in the light. What does that mean? Well, John has prefaced these words in first John 1:7 by the statement, “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all”. He then talks about walking in the light, that is to say, walking close enough to God so that His quality of being light will shine into and through your life. Paul the apostle said to his friends in Philippi, “Among whom ye shine as lights in the world”. Jesus our Lord said to His disciples, “Ye are the light of the world, let your light so shine”. So, walking in the light has to do with keeping close enough to the Lord Jesus so that every step is ordered by His command, every misstep is covered by His precious, atoning blood. Walking in the light.

There was an area in Africa, some years ago that was experiencing perennial revival, all year long, year after year, they were in the constant condition of revival. One of the visitors asked, “What was the secret of this”? And the answer came back said, “We simply walk in the light”. The instant any of us is aware of stepping out of the will of God, we confess and forsake that thing and then go on walking with the Lord. Walking in the light. The instant you’re aware of being out of step with God, confess and forsake it, plead the merits of the precious shed blood of Jesus, and go on walking with your Lord. That’s the way to do it.

Dear Father today, may we be walking in the light, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!



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