Spiritual Arsenal #3: Walk Right

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As we start the new year, I'm trying to arm you for the good fight of faith. The world doesn't adequately equip you for this. Even churches sometimes do a poor job of getting you ready. You need the right tools in your arsenal.

Over the past two weeks, we've looked at having the right mind and the right attitude. This week, I want you to think about another important piece of your spiritual toolkit: your walk.

One of the first things to learn when you enter the military is how to walk. Now that might seem an odd thing. Why would the military accept people who don’t know how to walk?

Truth is, folks who go into the armed services obviously know how to walk. They just don’t know how to "walk right" as a soldier. As a new Christian, you have been newly conscripted for service in the military—you belong to God’s army. Your enemies are spiritual in nature, not "blood and flesh," but you still need a spiritual boot camp. It starts by learning to walk right. You have to unlearn and relearn one of the most basic things of life.

The word for "walk" in Greek, the language of the New Testament, is peripateo. Although it commonly means "to walk about" on your own two feet, the word can also be translated more symbolically as "to live" depending on the context. (The word "walk" has a similar usage in English.)

We see this in Ephesians 4:1. Paul asks you to "walk worthy of the calling to which you’ve been called." Paul's not talking about a literal stride or gait. He's referring to your way of life. As a new Christian, you are in boot camp. You must learn how to live as someone who belongs to God. You must learn how to live right!

The point continues in 4:17,
Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer walk as the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. That is not the way you learned Christ! For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus. You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
Your old way of walking or living no longer cuts it. You must learn to walk in a new way. You have to live in the way shaped by Jesus Christ.

But how do you "walk right" in God's Kingdom? Do you have to avoid all mistakes? Should you pretend that that you are always right? Does it mean you ought to demand rightness from other people in all circumstances?

This is where the message of Ephesians challenges your assumptions and brings you to your knees in awe. Walking right demands total submission to God. Through Jesus, God has provided everything you need. As you increasingly put on Christ through right thinking and humility, you gradually learn to walk as Jesus walked. It happens organically and naturally the longer you live in Christ.

To walk right, you must first and foremost bow the knee to God. You have to stop acting like you know how to walk. Pull up your pants, Tie your shoes. And get ready for marching practice. God wants to remake you in a way that brings honor and glory to his name. Are you willing to unlearn your old walk and learn how to walk anew in the Kingdom way?

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