For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

For to be carnally minded is death;
but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Philippians 2:3

It is February and I hope you are still with us on the church theme. In case you forgot, the theme for the year is: Walk Worthily. And from Ephesians 4:1 and 2, we learnt that to “walk worthy” is to walk with “all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love.” We have touched on each of these virtues in previous articles. I hope they were useful for you.

Paul says in the verse above, “To be spiritually minded is life and peace.” There are two more thoughts that I would like to share with you on our theme in order to complete the picture of what walking worthily entails. These are: a) We need to live by the Spirit; and b) We need to live in the light.

Living by the Spirit. In Romans 8:4, Paul wrote: “That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” That text in Romans contrasts two kinds of people: they who are “after the flesh,” and they who are “after the Spirit.” The former lives according to their sinful nature and the latter, in accordance with the Spirit. One seeks the desires of sin; the other seeks the desires of the Spirit.

The two kinds of people are characterised by the controlling centre of life: Those who are controlled by their sinful nature “cannot please God.” Those not “in the flesh, but in the Spirit” have the Spirit of God dwelling in them (Rom 8: 8-9). To be “in the Spirit” is to be spiritually minded and be under the direction and influence of the Holy Spirit. That is how to live by the Spirit.

Living in the Light. We are called and made to be the “light of the world” (Matt 5:14), and therefore the simple truth is we need to “walk as children of light” (Eph 5:8). The standard here is: “what is acceptable unto the Lord” (Eph 5:10). Any other standard is unacceptable – the standard is Christ! To live in the light to this standard means to “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness” (Eph 5:11).

Ours is a world of darkness, but the light of the world is Jesus Christ. Out of our love relationship with Him we are called to live as children of light. There is a big difference between those in darkness and those in the light.The former love darkness, practises evil and generally live in darkness, while the person who knows Christ follows him, does the truth, and walks in the light.

To walk in the light, you must experience the radical transformation of the Holy Spirit. He saves us out of sin and enables us to walk in the light of Christ’s new life. The truth of this transformation is expressed in Ephesians: you “walked according to the course of this world” (2:2); but you should now “walk not” (4:17) according to your old ways.

To walk worthily therefore is to live by the Spirit and to live in the light – this is the “highway” – the “way of holiness” (Isa 35:8) that is “life and peace” in this dark world of ours.

  In Him,
Rev Robert Chew