Watch Your Walk 2 John 1:6 1 John 2:3-6 John 14:15-18 1 Timothy 4:16 Psalms 119:9-16 James 1:22-25 Psalms 1:1-6 Romans 7:21-8:4 Philippians 1:9-11 Psalms 139:1-3 23-24 05.15.19

WATCH YOUR WALK

BREAD

⁶ And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.  2 John 1:6 (NIV)

³ We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. ⁴ The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
⁵ But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: ⁶ Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.  1 John 2:3-6 (NIV)

¹⁵ “If you love me, you will obey what I command. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- ¹⁷ the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. ¹⁸ I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”  John 14:15-18 (NIV)

¹⁶ Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.  1 Timothy 4:16 (NIV)

⁹ How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word. ¹⁰ I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. ¹¹ I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. ¹² Praise be to you, O LORD; teach me your decrees. ¹³ With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth. ¹⁴ I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches. ¹⁵ I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. ¹⁶ I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word.  Psalm 119:9-16 (NIV)

²² Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. ²³ Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror ²⁴ and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. ²⁵ But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it--he will be blessed in what he does.  James 1:22-25 (NIV)

¹ Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. ² But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. ³ He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. ⁴ Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. ⁵ Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. ⁶ For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.  Psalm 1:1-6 (NIV)

²¹ So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²² For in my inner being I delight in God's law; ²³ but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. ²⁴ What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin…..¹ Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, ² because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. ³ For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, ⁴ in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.   Romans 7:21-8:1-4 (NIV)

⁹ And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, ¹⁰ so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, ¹¹ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ--to the glory and praise of God.  Philippians 1:9-11 (NIV)

¹ O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. ² You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. ³ You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways….²³ Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. ²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm 139:1-3, 23-24 (NIV)

BUTTER

“It is natural for us to wish and to plan, and it is merciful of the Lord to disappoint our plans and to cross our wishes.  For we cannot be safe or happy until we are weaned from our own wills and made simply desirous of being directed by His guidance.  Although we understand this we seldom learn to put it into practice without being trained for a while in the school of disappointment.  The schemes we form look so plausible and convenient that when they are broken we are ready to say, ‘What a pity!’  We try again, and with no better success; we are grieved, and perhaps angry, and plan another, and so on; eventually, in the course of time, experience and observation begin to convince us that we are no more able than we are worthy to choose correctly for ourselves.  The Lord’s invitation to cast our cares upon Him, and His promise to take care of us, appear valuable; and when we have done planning, His plan in our favor gradually opens, and He does more and better for us than we could either ask or think.  I can hardly recollect a single plan of mine, which if it had taken place in the time and the way I wanted would, humanly speaking, have proved my ruin; or at least would have deprived me of the greater good the Lord had designed for me.  We judge things by their present appearance; but the Lord sees them in their consequences.  If we could do the same we would be perfectly of His mind; but since we can’t, it is an unspeakable mercy that He will manage for us, whether we are pleased with His management or not; and it is regarded as one of His heaviest judgments when He gives any person up to the way of their own hearts, and to walk according to their own wisdom.”  Newton

“What is ‘good’?  Just as Pilate asked Jesus ‘What is Truth?’ while all the while looking straight at Truth Incarnate, we as humans often misconstrue ‘What is good?’ and end up missing out on God’s best by ‘kicking against the goads’ and not walking in His ways.  We so often buy into what the world believes as good.  Do we believe it’s all about more – More clothes in the closet?  More comforts in the den?  More money in the bank?  More health in the body?  More buildings, marquees, publications or whatever’s  bearing our names?  More children in the home?  And on and on and on it goes.  “Good” is not merely “wants”.  “Good” can be as varied as the people who populate this dusty earth.  Simply put, ‘good’ is always God’s best for a life.  The Maker of all humankind has a plan for each life and our best is always to walk in it – be it ever so hard.  His will is revealed in a myriad of ways from His Word, from the Holy Spirit’s promptings Who indwells every true believer in Christ, from prayer and petition with thanksgiving, from fellow sojourners – why God can even use a donkey or a great big fish!  And believe me, you always want to be in the center of His will as it is good and pleasing and perfect.  Don’t fight against God’s best because it is hard.  Allow Him to conform you to the 
image of Christ.  We are the ultimate losers if we don’t.  It is the life of true blessedness.”  BHY

“There is to be communication of the Holy Spirit with the individual Christian in the present life, and in a sense the Holy Spirit’s communication carries with it the entire Trinity. In a sense the Spirit is the Trinity’s agent in communicating with us humans. If I am going to walk in this present life according to my high calling as a Christian, I need a strength higher than my own strength. I need the power of Christ. How is this power of Christ to be mine? It’s not enough just to imagine that I have this power. It’s not even enough to take the second step and reckon myself dead to sin and alive to Christ. There must also be a communication of the power of Christ to me through the agency of the Holy Spirit who indwells me.” Francis Schaeffer

“Considering Mary, how did she “walk by the Spirit” and glorify Christ when God gave her an impossible circumstance?  She believed God for the impossible---“How will this be, for I am a virgin?” And she lived a life of repentance—“I am the Lord’s servant, may it be to me as you have said” What does a life of repentance look like?  It is a daily recognition that you are not your own, for you have been bought with a price.   What is your life response to the impossible issues you are facing?    How must you walk by the Spirit, in the way of repentance and faith, like Mary?  I must believe God that I am an adopted son or daughter.  That I am loved unconditionally; that I am forgiven and really free from sin in my life. I must believe I have the Holy Spirit’s seal of approval…I must believe God can and will do miraculous things in my life….in the lives of others around me…. “I must stop living life by and for myself… I must repent of my self saving ways….My idols of comfort, security and approval.  And I can because Jesus has already done all for me.  Not just some of what I need, but all of what I needed and need, on the cross and He continues to do, by the active Presence and Power of His Holy Spirit.”  Tom Wood

“We need to keep our heart full of a sense of the love of God. This is the greatest perspective available to us against the power of temptation in the world...Fill your heart with a sense of the love of God in Christ, and apply the eternal design of grace and shed blood to yourselves. Accept all the privileges of adoption, justification, and acceptance with God. Fill your heart with thoughts of the beauty of holiness...then in the ordinary course of walking with God, you will experience great peace and security from temptation.” John Owen

“Take courage.  We walk in the wilderness today and in the Promised Land tomorrow.”   D.L. Moody

“Let us see that we keep God before our eyes; that we walk in His ways and seek to please and glorify Him in everything, great and small.  Depend upon it, God’s work, done in God’s way, will never lack God’s supplies.”   Hudson Taylor

“Be simple; take our Lord’s hand and walk through things.”   Brother Andrew

“In our walk with God we are told explicitly by Christ Himself that it would be His Spirit who would be sent to guide us and to lead us into all truth (John 16:13).  This same gracious Spirit takes the truth of God, the Word of God, and makes it plain to our hearts and minds and spiritual understanding.  It is He who gently, tenderly, but persistently says to us, ‘This is the way – walk in it.’  And as we comply and cooperate with His gentle promptings a sense of safety, comfort and well-being envelops us.”   Phillip Keller

“Though salvation is not by the works of the law, yet the blessings which are promised to obedience are not denied to the faithful servants of God.  The curses our Lord took away when He was made a curse for us, but no clause of blessing has been abrogated.  We are to note and listen to the revealed will of the Lord, giving our attention not to portions of it but to ‘all these words.’  There must be no picking and choosing but an impartial respect to all that God has commanded.  This is the road of blessedness for the Father and for His children.  The Lord’s blessing is upon His chosen to the third and fourth generation.  If they walk uprightly before Him, He will make all men know that they are a seed which the Lord has blessed.”   Charles H. Spurgeon

HEART SAVOR

·         We are to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord in obedience to His commands through His power, for His glory, for our good.  And His commands are not burdensome, indeed they are life giving.  It is sin that is burdensome and brings death.

·         If we love Him, we will serve Him and believe that He always has our best interest at heart no matter what our circumstances may be shouting. 

·         The Holy Spirit Who indwells every believer in Jesus enables us to carry out the Lord’s commands.  Flesh fails and has no achieving power.