Five guidelines from Paul for your very best (spiritual!) walk

By Dean Collins

You don’t have to look very hard to find out that walking is helpful to our overall health. Go to mayoclinic.org and you will find at least 10 good things that happen to us when we take time to walk just a few minutes every day. Walking helps with weight reduction and management, heart health, stress reduction, and so much more. Walking is really good for us!

In Ephesians, Paul tells us five times to do some walking. Unlike the Mayo Clinic's reasons, the apostle’s encouragement has to do with our spiritual condition and not just our physical health.

Worthy

Paul’s first directive about walking says this: “Walk in a manner worthy of your calling.” Shortly after this Paul mentioned the roles of those gifted to help the church function together in unity: apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers. These are as important to the life and growth of the kingdom of God in the world today as they were in the first century. But these roles are not in any rank order, nor are they exclusive to the “calling” we have in Christ.

You may have a career calling for a season or for your entire work life, but one calling is not more worthy than another. Accountants aren’t more important than teachers, and teachers aren’t more important than wait staff at your favorite restaurant. Paul isn’t referring to our careers, but he also isn’t excluding the work we do through them.

What is worthy is not the occupation but the relationship we have in Christ. The first three chapters of Ephesians explain the indescribable grace and love of Christ that are ours and that establish our worth and identity. We may at times forget who we are in Christ, but that doesn't change that we are first and most importantly loved by God, chosen by God, and created by God and that our lives have value independent of what we could ever do.

When we walk in a manner worthy of our calling we are reminded of who we are in Christ and challenged to carry ourselves in a way that demonstrates that reality.

Wise

Paul then explains a little more: Don’t walk like the person who doesn’t know Jesus. He used the term Gentiles as a descriptor of one who follows the wisdom of the world over the wisdom and character of God. When nonbelievers/Gentiles come to faith in Christ and are transformed by his grace, they can’t keep behaving according to the values and systems of the world. Christ first and Christ only must be our standard.

Love

Paul’s third instruction about walking is to “walk in love as Christ loved us.” Paul explained that further by reminding us of the measurement: “who gave himself up for us.” We are not called to have some sweet emotional expression for everyone around us, but rather to give our lives, our time, our resources, and our energy to people as an expression of our love for God so that they might experience God’s love through us. And we can’t do this well if we choose to express hate or use tone or words that are opposite to those of Jesus. We can’t live kindly sometimes and do what we want in other times. We are called to walk in love every time and with everyone.

Light

Paul’s fourth walking tip is that we walk as children of the light. This instruction comes after Paul’s reminder that we once walked in darkness. We didn’t know, we couldn’t see clearly, because the light of Christ had not yet been shown to us. But once we come to Jesus, we now are light in the Lord. Paul’s instructions connect directly to Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount: You are the light of the world, and that light should never be hidden but rather burn brightly for everyone to see.

Watch out!

Finally, Paul says to pay attention to our walking. In your exercise or daily walking, you have to look where you're going so you don’t trip. In our spiritual walk, the same is true. As we live out our faith we are to not act unwisely but with wisdom.

Many Scriptures remind us of the wisdom of God available to every believer. In this text, Paul makes a direct connection between walking wisely and how we spend our time. This might seem as though Paul has gone from preaching to meddling! We all have our preferences about how we spend “our time.” Paul’s reminder doesn’t mean we can’t take time to relax or enjoy our hobbies and family. But it is a reminder that our time is his first. We must always determine to use our time wisely. When we do, we will likely find plenty of capacity for the things we enjoy. God wants us to be filled with joy and to live abundantly.

So go take a walk and get all the health benefits you can today. But as you walk each day, take a minute and ask God to walk with you and direct your path!

Your time with God’s Word
‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭4:1-7; 17-32; 5:2, 8-21 ‭ESV‬‬

Photo by Spencer Goggin at unsplash.com

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