Ephesians
singing and making melody in your heart
to the Lord;”
The Music of “LIFE”
Series:
“Stepping in the
Light”
Walking or
Wandering?
Words so often can paint a picture on the canvas of our minds leading us
down many paths. Sometimes words
can give way to romantic notions or vain thoughts, like the words, “wandering”,
“meandering”, “roaming”. These are
not ‘bad’ words, however in the life of a believer, they come up
empty. They can have a negative
connotation. The word, ‘wander’
means to move about aimlessly without a fixed course or goal; and
‘meandering’, gives us a picture of a winding course. When we look at their meanings, we
conclude it is not the best path for the believer to
follow.
The Words that suit us as Christian ladies, of course, are those that are
in keeping with God’s Word. Many a
hymn writer has put pen to paper to express some of God’s thoughts and then,
adding a melody, we tend to remember them more readily. One of those hymns is Stepping In the
Light, by Eliza E. Hewitt, (1851-1920)
and William J. Kirkpatrick, (1838-1921).
Verses 1 and 2 speak of our part in our Walk with the
Lord:
OUR
PART: Walking in His
Light
Verse I
“Trying to walk in the steps of
the Savior,
Trying to follow our Savior and King;
Shaping our lives by His blessed
example,
Happy, how happy, our songs that we
sing.
2
Pressing more closely to Him Who is leading,
When we are tempted to turn from the
way;
Trusting the
arm that is strong to defend us,
Happy, how happy, our praises each
day.
Scripture puts it this
way:
Ephesians 5:1, “Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children”. Let us turn to Ephesians 5:8-17[B] and see
what that means to us.
Verse 8
tells us we are no longer in darkness, but in light…so we are commanded to
“walk as children of light”.
Verse 9
– The walk is in all goodness, righteousness and truth, which are a fruit of the
Spirit of God.
Verse 14 - We are given direct instruction to Awake! And Arise! from our own wanderings and meanderings and instead…to “redeem the time”. We are promised that when we do, Christ will give us light.
Verse 15 – Walk carefully, diligently = the Bible calls it
‘circumspectly’. This is the path a
wise person walks.
Verse 16 – How? According to
this verse, “redeeming the time”; that is, make the most of our time while we
are able to do this.
Verse 17 – Why? That we might
understand the will of the Father.
The Father needs a clean vessel…a vessel that is empty and in readiness
for Him to fill.
Verse 18 – Tells us HOW we will have this understanding…we
will be ‘filled with the Holy spirit’.
It is He Who has the mind of the Father and will lead us into all that
the Father would have for us.
Being filled with the Holy Spirit is not the same as being sealed with the Holy
Spirit. We were sealed with the
Holy Spirit at salvation but being filled comes with an understanding and a
yielding to God’s will. So that
means we have to be empty of ourselves and our own will. The Holy Spirit’s filling will give us
the strength and boldness to do the will of the Father. Ultimately, our Christian character will
begin to shape and we will have the ‘scent of having been with Christ’. We will be walking in the
Light as Christ is in the Light.
Trying to walk; trying to follow; shaping our lives…how? by pressing more
closely to Him; trusting in His strong arm of defense. This sounds simple enough, does it not?
Yet, we know that all of this
doesn’t just happen! Like
everything we learn in this life, it takes practice doing God’s revealed will in
our lives.
We have to first have a vision: the vision that we want to please a holy
God. Then, we need a
motivation to follow that vision, that we may accomplish His goals. That motivation should be love for God
alone; God Himself! Everything is
for Him! And, then,
it takes practicing continuously, literally moment by moment so we don’t lose
sight of the ‘the vision’…to be holy as He is holy. And, like any skill or talent we are to
excel in, it takes repetition; practice.
That is, the doing of all it takes to reach God’s goal for us. It means making the effort to obey God
and His Word and to walk and follow His
example.
The hard part? Waiting on
God as He guides us and molds us into His Son’s image. We can become discouraged at times and
even want to throw up our hands and forget this Christian life. But, we can take heart; we are not alone
in all of this. Verse 3 encourages us to this
end. He is faithful and gives us
His grace to accomplish all that He has asked us to
do.
HIS PART:
3
Walking in footsteps of gentle
forbearance,
Footsteps of faithfulness, mercy and
love,
Looking to Him for the grace freely
promised,
Happy, how happy, our journey above.
OUR REWARD:
4
Trying to walk in the steps of the
Savior,
Upward, still upward we’ll follow our
Guide;
When we shall see Him, “the King in His
beauty,”
Happy, how happy, our place at His
side.
In conclusion, we are to Walk as children of Light.
Our characteristics as believers as we walk
is:
To walk in the newness of life (Romans
6:4)
To walk after the Spirit and not after the flesh (Romans 8:1)
To walk by faith (2 Corinthians
5:7)
To walk in the Spirit so that we don’t fulfill the lust of the
flesh
(Galatians 5:16)
To walk worthy of our
calling (Ephesians 4:1)
To walk wisely; “circumspectly” (Ephesians
To walk in the Light (I John
1:7)
To walk as Christ walked (I John
2:6)
To walk in truth I John 2:3,
4 says, “And
hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He that saith, I know Him and keepth not
His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in
him.”
Chorus:
How beautiful to walk in the steps of the
Savior
Stepping in the Light, Stepping in the
Light
How
beautiful to walk in the steps of the
Savior
Happy, oh Happy the songs that we
sing.”
Or: Blessed, blessed the praise that we sing.
Prepared by Mercedes S. Whelan
for Dorcas Mission Circle
Corinth Baptist Church, Corinth, ME
April 8,
2007