Walking by Standing

How much walking have you done this week? With Art Prize in town perhaps more than usual. How about standing? Soccer games. Waiting in line at the grocery store. How about walking in terms of Colossians --Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him (2:6).
Standing? That you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. (4:12).

Walking. Standing. As we have noted the last couple of weeks, the way that we walk is by standing. In other words, we make progress in our Christian life by receiving and resting on Christ as he comes to us in the Gospel. The more we stand in him (and more importantly he in us), the more that we are enabled to walk in a manner worthy of him.

Fundamentally, standing this way means believing what God says is true: true about Him, His world, our status in Christ, etc… . Jesus summed up the need for belief in John 6, identifying it as THE work that God calls us to — “this is the work, believe in the one whom God has sent.” This belief is a day-by-day, moment-by-moment activity. Francis Schaeffer captures this well in True Spirituality:

“So we must believe God’s promises at this one moment in which we are. Consequently, in believing God’s promises, we apply them- the present meaning of the work of Christ for the Christian- for and in this one moment. If you only can see that, everything changes. As we believe God for this moment, the Holy Spirit is not quenched. And through his agency, the risen and glorified Christ, as the bridegroom of the bride, the vine, brings forth his fruit through us, at this moment. This is the practice of active passivity. And it is the only way anybody can live; there is no other way to live but moment by moment.” Francis Schaeffer, True Spirituality, 86.

There is part of me as a pastor that wishes that I could offer you something more readily attainable and less labor intensive. In this uber connected world we long for quick answers and simple solutions. In the end, though, this is what Jesus invites us to: moment-by-moment belief in the promises of God applied to the individual situations of our lives. Passively active. Walking by Standing.