As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.
Colossians:2:6
Walk This Way, Please
One thing a writer learns early is that you never outgrow
the basics. Like an skater practicing figure eights until the ice is worn thin,
or a pianist going up and down the same scales, writers check spelling, use a thesaurus,
rewrite sentences and keep typing whether they have "writer's block" or not. If
you want a quality product, you better get the basics down and not forget them
as you progress.
It's the same way with the Christian life. No matter how
long we've served the Lord, no matter how much scripture we have memorized or
how many knotty theological problems we have unraveled, the basics of the faith
never change and going back to those basics again and again is an essential
element of the journey. If we want to experience the power made possible by our
faith, the basics must never be forgotten.
That was what worried Paul as he wrote the church at
Colosse. These Christians had love and hope and learning, but they were so
intent on doing things "right" that they were slowly drifting from the basics. They
needed to remember how they began and rehearse those truths over and over or
they would never move on to higher ground.
And, how had they begun? By forsaking dependence on self and
learning dependence on Jesus. It was a switch that was more than head
knowledge. More than feelings. It was soul-deep truth that cut away every prop
and excuse leaving them naked as a new born and just as helpless before a God
who called them into account. It was something inside them that reached from
that helpless spot believing Jesus would supply an unseen hand to keep them
from falling. It was faith.
For some Christians this initial step is instant and dramatic.
For others, it is a quiet unfolding. But for all it is the sure knowledge that,
because of Jesus, the sin which separated them from God was swept away by a
Power beyond themselves. This desperate dependence is a fundamental of the
faith that never changes through our years of service.
One would think this simple principle would be easy to
remember. It is not. A natural drift is built into humans that draw them from dependency.
We slowly begin to believe He only need help us with the hard stuff. We can handle
the rest of life on our own. From there, the trail winds downward and soon we
are working hard while holding up plans for Him to rubber-stamp. We become the
foreman on the job while Jesus is told to sit on a box and watch.
No wonder Paul felt the need to remind Christians that they
must never forget the basics. They had begun their walk by depending on Him to
do for them what they knew they could not do alone. Continuing to walking that
way was necessary if the product was to be a life well lived and to hear Him
say, "Well done."
