If you have ever been on a guided hiking tour along a trail and/or through a wooded park, the hiking guide continually warns the tour group – “do not wander off or leave the group. Stay with the group for your own safety as there are hazards, and cell signals are almost nonexistent.” The guide has walked the trail often and knows all of the pitfalls, all of those things that could make for an unpleasant journey. So, what would you do? Does a sense of adventure, the thrill-rush of the unknown spur you to walk away or hang back while the group goes forward? Do you believe that nothing bad will happen (hey, I believe in God and He said nothing bad will happen to His people), that getting off the trail can’t possibly lead to encounters with wild animals, new or strange plants that could prove harmful, pits, etc.? Because you are smart enough to figure out what to do? That losing sight of the group and hiking guide will not happen, or if it does, you have good skills for wandering around, and will catch up to them? After all, isn't the walk intended to reveal new and amazing, enjoyable-to-the-eye things? Yet the hiking guide won’t take you into those really cool places; he’s just keeping to some well-beaten path? Where is the fun in that? After all, God gave me a mind to think with, and desire to discover – I just want to exercise it for a while, then get back to the group when I’m finished!
Sadly, sometimes our view of 'fun' is shaped by the world, and involves risky behavior, stepping outside of known boundaries or safe paths, finding attraction in things and places that are potentially harmful – just like the imprudent walker/hiker who sees only the thrills of ditching the hiking group and doing it his or her way. How many know that wandering away from the expert guide puts you in danger, danger that will be exceedingly challenging for you to negotiate, no matter how smart you think you are? That stranded in a place without a cell signal, where the environment is such that it is hard to determine exactly where you are, is a very real possibility – are you willing to take that chance?
That is the warning God gives to us, because He does not want to see us get harmed. He loves us. He values our lives. He lovingly tells us to follow His Son, Jesus Christ, and allow Him to lead us to places He would have us go. Because God is Omniscient – He knows all things – He knows what is best for us and leads us along that way. He also has desired and predestined us for a future that will bring us the abundant life He has planned for us. He saved us, already knowing where we would go, even whether we might stumble along the way. He thus has designed the path upon which we will find success. Just the opposite: to walk without God, to leave the path He has put us on, is like walking in the dark – the dense darkness – without a torch or flashlight, i.e, without the True Light. Like a hiker or walker who strays away from the group and puts him or herself in potential risk situations, so will the believer, who leaves the path that Jesus and the Father have designed just for them, and can subsequently place him or herself in a risky situation (the risk is relative to one’s relationship with God, which is super serious, and can risk harming oneself physically, emotionally, and spiritually).
The youth studied a few months ago the idea of walking with God, and their feedback on that study has been in the sanctuary for all to see. Walking with God, following His Son, takes us along a narrow path, bordered by guardrails for our safety, and for our best life and enjoyment. Our natural inclination, though – based on our fallen human nature – is to go our own way and leave the path, and this inclination impacts us strongly when we are adolescents and teens, especially when we fall out of the nest and have more freedom. It also impacts us strongly when our children grow older and we are left with an empty nest. We might see ‘shiny pennies’ everywhere, things that beg us to leave the path to satisfy what we think we need, what will make us more fulfilled, will affirm our personhoods, or appeal to our fallen human nature relative to moral judgment and behavior. God sent His Son that we may follow Him and enjoy an abundant life in Christ.
If you have seen the tendency within yourself to leave the path God has designed for you, to not walk in the Way, pray to God to fill your heart and mind with His Word, so that it will guide you along the path following Christ. Ask Him to show you how to walk with The Truth, The Way, and The Life, even if others will not. Ask Him to help you learn that the guardrails along the path He has designed for you to walk in are to give you life, and not take life away. It is with much urgency that I invite us all to walk with the King, to follow Him, for the time is short and our vision limited – we can’t see the next moments, let alone see the past the curves in the path ahead. Walk wisely (according to the wisdom of God) and humbly is God’s call to all.
Scriptures to put into your Faith Arsenal:
Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk—not as unwise people but as wise—making the most of the time, because the days are evil.
Only, as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each, in this manner let him walk. And so I direct in all the churches.
And whoever doesn’t take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me.
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
for we walk by faith, not by sight—
Sometimes there is a way that seems to be right, but in the end it is the way to death.
John 6:65-69 And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” 66 As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore. 67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” 68 Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. 69 We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”
And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it.
When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought towalk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more.
Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,
Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.
John 10:1-18
“…I am the door…”
“…I am the door…”
John 14:6
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Ephesians 1:3-6
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
Ephesians 1:11
In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will,
In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will,
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
How blessed are the people who know the joyful sound! O Lord, they walk in the light of Your countenance.
For You have delivered my soul from death, Indeed my feet from stumbling, So that I may walk before God In the light of the living.
So Jesus said to them, “For a little while longer the Light is among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes.
These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God.
Even when the fool walks along the road, his sense is lacking and he demonstrates to everyone that he is a fool.
Thus says the Lord, “Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, Where the good way is, and walk in it; And you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
The steps of a man are established by the Lord, And He delights in his way.
For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps,
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.
1 Peter 4:3-5
You have already spent enough time in doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry. 4 [Your former associates] are surprised that you no longer join them in the same excesses of dissipation, and so they blaspheme. 5 But they will have to give an accounting to him who stands ready to judge the living and the dead.
You have already spent enough time in doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry. 4 [Your former associates] are surprised that you no longer join them in the same excesses of dissipation, and so they blaspheme. 5 But they will have to give an accounting to him who stands ready to judge the living and the dead.
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