Walking with Jesus

I've been spending a lot of time lately studying and discussing with others what it means to be a Christian.  It's a big subject, but at the same time it has a pretty simple answer.  You may not know it, but that's a big issue of discussion within the Christian world right now, and frankly, many churches in the Western world have it wrong. My denomination was certainly wrong about it, in important ways, for a lot of years, but we're a lot closer now and still growing into a better understanding of it.  To be more personal, I had it wrong all those years and I'm just now seeing it more clearly. 

Most of the time when most Christians tell you about salvation, it's all about forgiveness of your sins and going to be with God when you die.  Those two things are true, but if that's all there is, you may as well live like a pagan until two minutes before you die, then be sure to ask for salvation!  This feeds our Western consumer mentality:  God is someone who will give you forgiveness and other stuff, and salvation is a product you acquire by saying a prayer and getting baptized.  Oh, and attending church -- so choose the most attractive church around, that will make you feel good and increase your social status. 

All of that misses the point.  I wrote briefly about that on September 6, that salvation is not about location but about relationship.  Let me begin to expand on that here.


Salvation is not just a legal or accounting transaction that takes place in heaven when you say the right prayer.  It is being saved from yourself and your sins, but more than that, it's being saved into a life spent with Christ, following him.  Jesus told the twelve, "Come, follow me" and they spent the next three years walking around with him, watching the way he treated people and scratching their heads over what he had just taught.  They began to realize that what he taught related directly to the way he treated people (you might say he lived what he taught).  And they figured out eventually that what he taught and how he treated others came directly from his relationship with the Father, whom Jesus came to reveal.  Once the Holy Spirit was given to them, those relationships were clear to them, and they were able to live what Jesus taught, and teach it to others as he had taught them.

Living a Christian life is, simply, learning to walk with Jesus every hour of every day. Learning to trust him.  Surrendering control to him.  Listening to him.  Letting him do the talking instead of your old motivations. You may have been a Christian for six hours or sixty years, but quite possibly you and I both have missed out on a lot of this, and we both need it.  We'll look later at the methods that will help us, but let's begin with a quietness before God, recognizing our complete inability to make life work and surrendering it to him instead.  Will you walk with Jesus along with me?