Carrying on with our look at how we acquire the Christian Life with the Lord Jesus and grace as He moves us on to maturity in the truth and knowledge of Him and His being restored as the LORD of Genesis through Revelation. All being accomplished by revelation, the same revelation that the Prophets of old received in the same way. Because from the very begin Grace was in operation with the people of God as they walked daily with Him and were known as being righteous, or by walking with the LORD or hearing His voice....etc. Today looking at Pastor Hoekstra's writing on Grace and how we all start our own faith walk, having received Him as our Grace resource.
"More on Walking with Jesus the Way We Received Him"
By Robert Hoekstra
"As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving." (Colossians 2:6-7)
"The manner in which we received the Lord Jesus is the very same manner in which we are to walk in Him. "As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him." We received Him by grace, we must walk by grace. We were born again by the Spirit, we must walk by the Spirit. Furthermore, when we first received Christ, He was our only hope at Redemption. Now, we are to walk with Him the same way.
It is good to recall how Jesus was the comprehensive focus of our beginning with Him. When we received Him and His forgiveness by Redemption, we knew He had to provide all that was needed for our salvation. We agreed with the word GOD, that there is no other hope than Jesus. "Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me' . . . Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (John 14:6 and Acts 4:12). (Here "saved" is to kept from destruction that is to say removed as Noah and his family were removed from destruction, it also means to be restored to mans original condition, that is to say healed.) We knew that we could supply nothing ourselves. We were spiritually dead, having no righteousness at all: "dead in trespasses and sins . . . all our righteousness are like filthy rags" (Ephesians 2:1 and Isaiah 64:6). We had entered the blessed condition of being convicted of our own spiritual bankruptcy and stark nakedness. (Nakedness because we were not yet clothed in Christ as revelation shown by the Spirit within us. Causing us to wont more of Christ and His salvation.) "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3). Jesus was our comprehensive focus, our only hope.
This is how we are to walk in Him daily. We need the Lord Jesus as much now for living the Christian life, as we needed Him at the beginning to be born again in Redemption on to His salvation. For growth and victory and fruitfulness, He is the one we must focus upon. "As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the LORD, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving." We need to be rooted in Him, having our faith reaching out to Him for nutrition and strength, even as the roots of a tree reach into the soil. We need to be built up in Him, having our lives developed by His work in us. We need to be established in the faith, allowing Him to stabilize us through the study of His word. This will lead to lives of overflowing appreciation, grateful that "Christ is all and in all" (Colossians 3:11). Truly, we need the Lord Jesus the LORD as much now for living the Christian life, as we needed Him at the beginning to be born again into it."
Tomorrow we shall bring this all to a conclusion, the LORD willing.
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