Walk Challenge for the week

My challenge to myself and to my readers is this: During this week, be aware of your walk with Christ. Are we walking carefully, with the Spirit of God leading our actions and reactions? Are we walking in Love, just as Christ loved us? Are we walking with God, is that relationship between us and Him being fostered? Are we walking in grace, knowing that our salvation was won by Him and Him alone and that no works of our own increase that salvation? Are we walking aware that our walks will be tested by God to see whether or not we remain faithful to Him? Are we walking in His Word, in His Ways?

I challenge you this week to ask yourself those questions and to spend this week walking with God and His Word. To spend each day making wise decisions that align yourself with the will of God. To ask for forgiveness and repent when we do something wrong. To look for the open doors that God would have us go through in order to bring Him glory and to reach the lost for Christ.

On Friday I would like to hear your stories of what God did in your life concerning your walk this week. I hope there are a lot of stories.

'Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise..'

Ephesians 5:15

NChrist,

Susan Luka

Walking took me to an interesting place today

Todays walk through Scripture took me to a unlikely place. A set of verses in Psalm 48 revealed some really cool things. I looked at this verse in my concordance and thought to myself, 'well, those are a'ight, so I will just scribble them on my paper and move on to some cooler verses.' But, when I read the set of verses after it, it really made the 'walking' part of this verse come alive. Here are the verses:

PSALM 48:12-14

12 Walk about Zion, go around her,count her towers,
13 consider well her ramparts, view her citadels,that you may tell of them to the next generation.
14 For this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end.

The first word in v. 12 is 'walk'. Walk about what? WALK about Zion, Gods Holy Land. Walk around counting her towers; consider how strong this land is and whose God protects them. Walk and consider her ramparts or bulwarks; otherwise known as armies, defenses and realize the strenghth and might of them. Walk and view her citadels, how beautiful they are. When we walk or Michelle in your case, run. We pass by many things as we do so. How often do we take in their beauty, grandeur, strength, might, God's creation, the thought of our God with us and his protection over us. The walk above is definitely a verb, but it wants us doing more than walking. It wants us walking and looking around. Taking in what is around us. Commentaries describe the towers, the bulwarks, the citadels as the beauty, grandeur and might of doctrine, our beliefs. The Psalmist desired that enemies look at these things in Zion and be in awe and would tremble at the might of their God and his blessing in letting them have such strong towers, mighty defenses and beautiful citadels. Today our churches, our lives, our sacred families should be those towers and bulwarks and citadels that people can look at and awe over and see the might of Jesus in.

And why did the Psalmist want people walking around looking at these things? v.13b says, 'that you may tell of them to the next generation.' Notice it does not say, 'that you MIGHT tell'. We are told to tell of these wonderful things to our children, to the future generations. I love how Origen puts it, 'In a spiritual sense the towers and bulwarks of Zion are those doctrines of the true faith, which are the strength and glory of the church, which are to be maintained in their soundness and stability against the assaults of heretical teachers so that they may be transmitted unimpaired to the following generations-' Wow, I love that quote. We need to keep the history of our faith in tact, doctrines and all. For its those things that we must pass down to the next generation. Walking in faith. Walking in the word of God ensure that our steps are firm and our doctrines true so that those behind us would follow our example. Charles Spurgeon puts it well, ' An excellent reason for studious observation. We have received and we must transmit. We must be students that we may be teachers. The debt we owe to the past we must endeavor to repay by handing down the truth to the future.' Wow, these old guys just know how to put it! I think this is why Michael and I love youth ministry. It is our unfailing desire to transmit truth to the generation behind us. It was adults in our past who invested truth into us, and it is our desire to do that to this generation. May God raise up a godly generation who desire nothing more than to invest truth into one another and into the lives of future generations that we might be sons and daughters of the Most High King, for now and forevermore. Amen.

NChrist, Susan