Sit, Walk and Stand Based On Grace and His Finished Work (3)

Ephesians 4 opens with Paul beseeching us to walk worthy of our calling : “I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (Ephesians 4 :1-3 NKJ)

We have already established in my previous posts that in order for our Christian walk to be stable and good, we have to first learn to “sit’ well and that the Christian life begins from this position of rest. From this premise, Paul moves on to talk about “walking”. It is not in the literal sense here but rather it is a figurative way of talking about how we live our lives as Christians. Paul says we are to walk worthy of the calling. What is this calling? If we refer to the first chapter of Ephesians, I believe that Paul is talking about our calling into sonship. “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.” (Ephesians 1:4-6 NKJ)

This flows with what Paul is talking about with reference to “sit”, that God has“…raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:6) In ! Corinthians 1:9, Paul also says that “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (NKJ)

Therefore when Paul says that we are “to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called” , I believe he is asking us, New Covenant believers, to enter into fellowship with God as sons, not merely as saved sinners but as SONS. To walk worthy of this calling into sonship is to live as sons of our Abba, constantly knowing that we are now seated in heavenly places with Christ. When we are rooted in the knowledge of who we are in Christ and we manifest it in our lives, we are therefore walking worthy of this calling.

The second part of Ephesians 4:1 says “with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” The qualities mentioned here remind me of 1 Corinthians 13 which is an often quoted passage on what the Bible defines love to be. “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13 :4-7 NKJ) So it appears that Paul is imploring us to love one another and to keep the unity of the Spirit.

This echoes the words of Jesus in John 13:34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” (NKJ) How do we love one another? As Christ has loved us. We can only love others if we know how much we are loved by God. When we love others from the overflow of being so loved by our Abba, we are manifesting the fruit of walking in the Spirit which is “…love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,” (Galatians 5:22 NKJ)

When we love, we are “keeping the unity of the Spirit”. Whether we are Jews, Gentiles (as in the case of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians), or in our context, believers of different denominations in the Body of Christ, we love one another and are united in peace by our calling as sons of God, a calling and identity which we must consciously walk in.

------------------to be continued---------------