Ephesians 5:1-2 - Walking Jesus

Today,we're starting a new chapter in Ephesians 5 which is about Walking Jesus! Remember,when I started this series in Ephesians, I mentioned that years ago I gave eachof the chapters a subject headline. Ephesians 1 was Knowing Christ. Ifwe're going to live for Christ we must know Christ. We must know Him as ourpersonal Savior. We must know Him also as our Lord and the one who fills uswith His Holy Spirit. Ephesians 2 was Living Christ. If we know Christ,then we should live Christ. Ephesians 3 was Loving Christ. What He wantsmore than anything else is that our sacrifice and service for Him is out oflove.  Ephesians4 that we've been looking at was Talking Christ. We are not to talk andwalk and live as the Gentiles live, but we walk in purity. And that means thatwe talk Christ. Our speech should always be seasoned with grace and seasonedwith salt. We are not to speak and let corrupt words come out of our mouths,but we're to speak that which is good and edifying and building up.  Now,Ephesians 5 is Walking Christ. In this chapter, it is interesting tonote that we see at least three walks we are suppose have. In verses 1-2, weread, “Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, asChrist also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrificeto God for a sweet-smelling aroma.”  We walk in love. In verse 8, we read, “Foryou were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children oflight.” We are to walk in the light. It speaks of this also because aswe noticed in verse 1, we are dear children of the Lord, we should walk inlight. Then in verses 15-16, we read, “See then that you walk circumspectly,not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” Weare also to walk “circumspectly. Which means that we walk carefully. In otherwords, we are walk with wisdom.  Theseare three walks we see in the first part of this chapter. We'll be talkingabout them the next several days. It's so important that we do have a walk thatmatches our talk. If our talk is such that we are saying we're Christians, andtelling others that we're followers of Jesus Christ, then our daily walk, ourpractical walk ought to be there. The first aspect of that walk that Paulmentions is that we walk in love because we're imitators of God as His dearchildren. In these first two verses, Paul then gives us several reasons why weshould walk in this love. This is a walk because Christ loved us and gaveHimself for us. 1 John 4:8 tells us that “God is love”. Since He is love, andwe are His children, we're to walk in that love. Therefore,as we've already read in the previous chapters, because we're in Christ, we arenot to be as the Gentiles, living lewd and wicked and evil lives. We're to bedifferent in our daily walk and life. We also now should walk in love as Christloved us. This is Walking Jesus! We'll get into more detail aboutthat in the next couple days.  Thankyou for your prayers. Pray for the team on their way to India today for safetravels and God's blessings to be upon them. Continue to pray for us. And Ipray you also have a wonderful, wonderful day. God bless!