Our “Walk” 

Part 2- Our Influence

How is our “walk” related to God’s ultimate purpose for our lives? What is our purpose? One of the definitions of walk is to “guide, accompany, or escort someone”. I think about how I used to hold Rhiannon’s or Jordan’s hand when they were first learning to walk. They were babies and they didn’t know how or where to walk. I had to make sure they stayed safe and away from danger as they were learning to walk. As they grew and learned, I had to physically hold their hands less and less, until one day, I didn’t have to physically hold their hands at all. But…..in a way, I still held their hand, not physically, but in spirit. Instead of guiding them physically, I tried my best to help guide them  spiritually through my example and life experience. I certainly have never wanted them to make the same mistakes I have made. I did my best at the time. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t always great. I look back and see things I should have done or not done. But hindsight is always 20/20. I pray that they were guided or “walked” in the right way so that they know which path to take in life. I believe they both know that living the Christian life and staying on the narrow road that Jesus spoke of in Matthew 7:13-14 is the only path to true satisfaction in this life. It is, after all, the path to eternal life with God. Now they are grown and married with families of their own, however, I am still holding their hands symbolically in my heart. I can still help them and be an example to them in my Christian walk. I am still here for them on their Christian walk at any moment. So….each of us can make an impression on others with our “walk”, whether it be our family, friends, co-workers, or even people we come in contact with by chance, right? My reaction in every situation will show who I am, and who I belong to, right? 

I would like to use Micah 6:8 as my springboard for this lesson. It reads:

“He has shown you, O man, what is good;

And what does the Lord require of you

But to do justly,

To love mercy,

And to walk humbly with your God?”

In these verses, God is speaking to His people through the prophet Micah. Through Micah, God is pleading with His people to choose to follow Him and walk in His ways. God is saying, “Haven’t I shown you what I expect of you? Please do it!” God pleaded with His people in the old testament over and over again, but they just kept turning away from Him to follow other gods. He didn’t want them to suffer, but in order to preserve the lineage of His Son, He had to allow them to suffer the consequences when they disobeyed Him. God promised us a Savior and He kept that promise through Jesus. Our Father pleads with us to follow Him today just like He did back then. Micah 6:8 is for us just as much as it was for them. God does not want us to suffer the consequences of what a life on the wide path of destruction will bring us. He wants us to walk down the narrow path that He has “marked out” for us. (Matthew 7:13-14) All He wants is for us to choose Him first and foremost in our lives. If we do this, it will be the best life we could ever live. And why shouldn’t we choose to put God first? Romans 12:1-2 tells us it is our “reasonable service” to walk through our lives as a “living sacrifice” to God. After all, look what He has done for us! We are only here because of Him. We can only have salvation if we walk according to His plan. I believe that Micah 6:8 beautifully explains how we should walk as Christians. I only recently discovered this verse, and I truly love it.

However, to fully understand Micah 6:8, we need to back up to Micah 6:6-7. It reads, 

“With what shall I come before the Lord,

And bow myself before the High God?

Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings,

With calves a year old?

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,

Ten thousand rivers of oil?

Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,

The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

Micah is telling the Israelites that God isn’t concerned with how many burnt offerings they sacrifice. God doesn’t want them to sacrifice their firstborn for their transgressions. He isn’t worried about how much oil they bring to the altar. All those religious acts won’t matter one bit if their heart is not right with God. None of it matters if they are not treating others properly. They could bring “thousands of rams” as offerings, but it won’t matter if they are just going through the motions. This should tell us something about our Christian walk. It doesn’t matter how many acts of service we do. It doesn’t matter if we are at church every time the doors are open. It doesn’t matter how much money we give. If our motives within our heart are not right, then none of those things will matter. If all we are doing is trying to gain God’s approval or other people’s approval through acts of merit, then we have missed the mark. I am not saying that we shouldn’t do all the things listed above, because we absolutely should. However…..our motives have to be pure and according to God’s purpose in everything we do. Our God is not a God that has to be appeased. We don’t have to gain His approval. God is not asking us to do things that aren’t possible for us to do. God has simply asked us to obey His Word, and then mirror our lives as much like His Son as is within our power and abilities. Micah 6:8 says that God has shown mankind what is good. He then lists three ways that God required His people to “walk”. He told them “to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly” with their God. He also requires us to “walk” in these same ways today. These things are not impossible. Are they easy all the time? No! They are not easy, but they are certainly not impossible. It takes effort and focus on our part. At that time in history, God had shown the Israelites all these qualities by the way He cared for them. Today, we have Jesus’ example to look at as we walk. Jesus walked in all the ways that Micah 6:8 lists. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 5:13-16. He calls us the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Let’s look at the salt comparison. Salt brings out the flavor in food. Jesus is the salt in us. He gives us our “flavor” as we walk. Without Him, we are bland, just like our food is bland without salt. If we are in Christ and being faithful to Him, we are salt. Now, let’s look at the light comparison. Jesus is the light of the world. (John 8:12) If we are in Christ, then we are the light of the world. Jesus is that light in us. Without Him, we are darkness. We “flavor” or “light up” the world with all the things listed in Micah 6:8: fairness, love, mercy, compassion, kindness, and humility. In our Christian “walk”, we are to let our light shine before men so that they may see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:16) So what does this mean for us as Christians today? It means that it is our responsibility to show others Jesus. Jesus commissioned us to go and make disciples in Matthew 28:18-20. Are we making that our purpose? My toes are seriously hurting right now! Am I purposely and intentionally guiding other people to Jesus? Is my “walk” truly a Christian “walk”? Because it isn’t just about me. It is about my influence on others. 

What does it mean to “do justly” in my daily walk of life? It means I treat people fairly. I should not be a “respecter of persons”. God isn’t, so I shouldn’t be either. (Acts 10:34) I should love all my brothers and sisters in Christ in the same way. I may be closer to some people than others, but I have a love for them all, even those that I don’t know. I don’t treat one person better than another person for any reason. I don’t judge people according to how they look or dress or any other physical appearance. It is a long read, but James 2:1-13 basically explains that we shouldn’t show partiality to certain people for any reason, whether it be how they dress, how much money they make, or their status in life. This is how we “do justly”. I shouldn’t judge people by their past. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 has a long list of sinful practices that those Christians at Corinth had been involved in before they were baptized into Christ to become Christians. (Acts 18:8) But….1 Corinthians 6:11 says, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” Someone’s past “walk” doesn’t matter. It only matters how they “walk” in the future. As far as how I am to treat my non-Christian friends, this is critical to my Christian walk. I cannot come across as holier-than-thou. I will turn them off immediately with that attitude. I cannot call someone out or act offended over every little thing they say or do that I don’t agree with. I have to pick my battles. Trust me, if you are living righteously in front of them, they will quickly learn from how you speak, and how you act and react, what kinds of things you are uncomfortable with. The bottom line is that I should treat everyone with respect no matter what walk of life they come from. I don’t degrade someone who doesn’t believe the same way as me. I listen to what they say without interrupting. They may have not been taught the truth yet. I need to be looking for open doors to teach them. If they are willing to tell me what they believe, then that is an open door for me to tell them about Jesus and the gospel. While looking for those open doors, I simply just show them that I belong to Jesus through how I treat them, and when I get the opportunity to talk about the gospel with them, I simply use God’s word to back up everything I believe. “Doing justly” in our Christian walk is understanding that everyone in this world is equally deserving of being taught the gospel of salvation. And everything that I do and say in this regard, is to be done and said with love and kindness. Paul in 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 says, “Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. Let all that you do be done with love.” This brings me to the second thing listed in Micah 6:8. We are “to love mercy”.

What does it mean “to love mercy”? Doesn’t that sound wonderful? It means lovingkindness. It means that I should intentionally show kindness, mercy and compassion to others in my daily walk. Is it hard to show kindness all the time? It’s hard to show kindness when someone has done us wrong, right? But this is what God calls us to do. It will truly show others who are not Christians that we are set apart. Like Jesus said in Luke 6:27-36, we are no different from anyone else if we only show kindness and mercy to people who are our friends. People outside of Christ do that. However…..we are truly set apart when we show kindness and mercy to people that we don’t really like very much, people who are annoying to us, or people who don’t treat us well. We have to remember that there is a precious soul in every person, even the ones we don’t like to be around. God calls us to be kind and merciful. Jesus specifically says in Luke 6:35-36, “But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.”  Wow. That is a tough one, isn’t it? I have to work on this one. Let me ask this question to end this section. How do we want to be treated? This should sum up how we should treat others. (Matthew 7:12) And finally, the third thing listed in Micah 6:8 is that we are “to walk humbly” with our God. 

What does it look like “to walk humbly” with our God? The dictionary definition of humility is “a modest or low view of one’s own importance”. Biblically, it means we are to put others before ourselves. The world is a “look out for number one” kind of place. Satan wants people to only look out for themselves, and to run over others to get what they want. Satan wants us to have a “win at all costs” attitude. The world wants us to put our desires at the top of our list and do whatever makes us happy. But as Christians, we are called to be set apart in that we put God first, others second, and ourselves last. And actually, this is the only real way to be happy. Doesn’t it make you happy to do something nice for someone else? Philippians 2:3-4 says, “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.” The phrase “lowliness of mind” in this verse means humility. Verse 3 is also reminding us about our motives for things we do also. We should be purely motivated by love for others in everything we do. We are even called to be concerned about the “interests” of our brothers and sisters in Christ. This means we should be looking out for each other. And we should be interested in each other as brothers and sisters. We should do this for our friends who are not Christians as well. This is how we let our light shine before men. 

Ephesians 2:10 says this, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” We were “His workmanship” when we were born as a baby. We were “created in Christ Jesus” when we were born again in baptism for the remission of our sins. At that moment when we came up out of the waters of baptism, we were created “for good works”. God prepared the “good works” for us to “walk in” from the beginning. God knew how He wanted us to walk before He created the world. In John 13:34-35, Jesus spoke these words, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” Jesus wants us to show others that we belong to Him. Let’s remember Micah 6:8 in our daily Christian walks, Sisters. Let’s “do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly” with our God, ladies. If we do, we will make an impact far greater than we will ever truly realize. Like the picture at the top of the post says, we will make a difference. Love you all! Have a wonderful week!

Are you in Christ? Below I have added God’s plan of salvation with scripture references. If you need help in understanding, please reach out.

God’s Plan of Salvation

If anyone ever needs help in learning the truth of the gospel, please reach out and I can help you or put you in contact with someone who can. Below is the plan that God has set forth in His word, for mankind to receive His grace that leads to salvation and an eternity with God in heaven. 

We have to hear His word. (Romans 10:17) 

Upon hearing the message of Jesus, we believe it. (Mark 16:16) 

Then, we confess Jesus’ name before men. (Matthew 10:32) 

Next, we repent of our sins. (Acts 2:38, Acts 3:19) 

Finally, we are baptized into Christ for the remission of our sins. (Acts 2:38, Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:16, Romans 6:3-4, Acts 22:16, 1 Corinthians 12:13, Galatians 3:26-27) After baptism, God adds us to His church. (Acts 2:47)

Then, we remain faithful in our commitment to Christ until death. (Revelation 2:10, 2 Peter 2:20-22)