Walking is good for us! Consider the many benefits of walking:
- Good for our heart and lungs – Keeps us alive
- reduced risk of heart disease and stroke – Keeps us from dying
- helps with hypertension, high cholesterol, joint and muscular pain/stiffness– Keeps us moving
- make for stronger bones and improved balance – keeps us strong
- increased muscle strength and endurance – good shape
- reduced body fat – keeps us healthy
HE WALKS AMONG US
God has been walking with His people from day one. God walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden (Genesis 3:8). He did not stop walking with them when they left the garden. Throughout the Bible we are told about God walking among His people.
In Leviticus 26: 3-13, God tells us, “If you walk in my statutes and keep my commandments and perform them, then…” (Notice the “If-then” statements in scripture, they are important). We are to walk with God in his statutes (something prescribed), keeping His commandments and performing them. If we walk this way, then God makes promises. In your Bible underline the “I will” statements (promises) in this passage. Notice all of the good things God will provide:
- :4 “give you rain” increased produce (no hunger)
- :6 “give you peace” (no stress)
- :6 “rid the land of evil beasts” (no fear)
- :9 “look on you favorably” (no wrath)
- :11 “set my tabernacle among you” (live among you) (no wandering)
- :12 “walk among you and Be Your God and you shall be MY PEOPLE” (no doubt)
Then He gives us His affirmation in verse 13: “I AM the Lord…I HAVE broken the bands...made you WALK upright”.
Paul quotes this passage and applies this to Christians in 2 Corinthians 6:16-18. He says that God will walk among us. He does not leave us alone! If we are holding His hand as we walk, He will lift us up when we fall or stumble. When we let go of His hand, we will get lost, stumble and might get captured by our enemy!
HE DIRECTS OUR STEPS
When the shepherds of Israel had become “dull hearted and have not sought the lord” (Jeremiah 10:21-23) Jeremiah prays “O LORD, I know the way of man is not in himself; It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.” We need to be led and God will lead if we let HIm.
How does God direct our steps? Through His Word! The Bible properly applied will always take you in the right way, to the right place. His word is a lamp and a light for our steps (Psalm 119:105). Proverbs 16:9 says “A man’s heart plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.” If we replace the word woman for man in the following verses, this is how it would read:”
“The steps of a good WOMAN are ordered by the LORD, And He delights in HER way. Though SHE fall, SHE shall not be utterly cast down; For the LORD upholds HER with His hand.”
Psalm 37:23-24
In David’s prayer in Psalm 143, David asks in verse 8, “Cause me to know the way in which I should walk, For I lift up my soul to You.” In order for God to direct our steps, we must Study God’s Word and ASK Him to direct our steps.
Walking with God pleases Him (1 Thessalonians 4:1) and is loving: “This is love, that we walk according to His commandments” (2 John 1:6).
WALKING IN CHRIST’S STEPS
When we are following someone, we trust them to know where they are going. The beauty of walking in Christ’s steps is that He has walked this way before, on this earth with all of it’s trouble and struggles. Jesus endured all of the temptations that we will or have endured (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus knows the way and has left us an example (1 Peter 2:21) so that we can know how to walk.
“As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him…”
Colossians 2:2-7