WALKING WORTHY?

I am constantly convicted by the Word of God, and I have been sitting on a couple of partial verses the past few weeks.
“That you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God”  
“…that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus…
Both phrases of verses comes from 1 Colossians, the first is part of verse 10, and the second the latter part of verse 28.
It is so interesting to me, how just a little nibble on His Word, can cause us to contemplate so many areas of our lives.

The question for us is… am I living to and for myself, or to and for Him?

“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.”Genesis 8:22

This Scripture reminds us that everything we do here on earth has a consequence, whether good or bad. Our lives are not invisible.  God created each one of us for a specific purpose.  What are we investing our thoughts energy and time into?  Is it just for me, or have I agreed and submitted to His preeminence in all things?

“For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.  All things were created through Him and for Him.  And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.  And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.” Col 1:16-18

I am encouraged by His Word to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, because that order is His order.  When He is not the head of my decisions, I am out of order.  Something else has become my God, and that will not go well for me.   When He is not the head of my decisions, then I have put myself in His place.  Seriously, think about that for a moment…are we even remotely qualified?  Nope.

His word further instructs us in Luke 9:23-24 “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.  For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.”

This is such an encouragement to us to cling to Him.  Not just when the going gets tough, but always.  He has made it possible for each of us to commune with Him all day every day.  We get to discover who He is, and who He wants to be for us each individually.  We get to discover who He has created each of us to be. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. He has numbered the hairs on our heads, He has collected each of our tears in a bottle, all of our days were written in His book before any of them came to be.  He knows each of us intimately…We get to spend all of our days discovering Him; and in that finding words to describe what we know to be true through our experience of His love for us individually. 

Practically speaking that in every situation, we would ask Him, What would you have of me in this Lord?
How would you like me to respond?  I know what I would like to do, but what would you have me do…?  We then choose to die to our flesh, and by His grace are enabled to be immediately obedient to His leading. Whereby we grow in His grace maturing in Christ Jesus. It allows us to remain abiding in His Spirit that the fruit of His Spirit does overflow.   We then are a people full of overflowing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness  and self-control…when no one else is. This is a place that we truly should concentrate our effort to remain.

May we each strive toward this end…that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus, according to His working which works in each of us mightily.