How is your walk?

• How are your shoes?
• Are they comfortable enough for you to walk mile-after-mile, kilometer-after-kilometer?
• Are you able to walk a great distance without the need of rest?
• Do you take time to prepare, to exercise your right to read the Scripture, to study?
• Are you talking with the Lord daily?
• What about listening?
• Do you allow yourself time each day to sit in solitude and just listen for the Lord’s direction, for His words?

When I was a child, my family mowed yards and a cemetery to supplement the family income.  Over time, I must have developed “a walk” a way of walking that patterned the way I walked behind the push mower when I was a child.  I remember how part of the mowing required that we push our mowers uphill, causing my pre-teen body to lean into the push mower, giving the uphill battle all my concentrated effort.  Then, on the return, as I pushed my mower downhill between the rows of stones, my concentration was not needed so much because I was barely pushing, but only walking behind the push mower.  God’s perfect gravity did most of the work for me as I descended the hill.

For years now, my husband has enjoyed teasing me for the way I walk (a walk pattern I learned behind the push mower).

“Are you pushing the mower?” he would ask early in our relationship.

Now, he just proclaims it so.

Still, the truth is the truth.  I am.  I do. I probably always will.

The walk-pattern is deeply ingrained into my being.

Ponder there a moment.  Consider our “walk-pattern” in the way we walk with the Lord.

• Is it in-grained deeply into our being?
• Are we pushing with all our might, giving “our walk” all we have with all our body strength, pushing to reach the top, straining (as the apostle Paul said) toward the “Prize” of reaching the “Goal”?

OR

• Are we merely enjoying the downhill walk of our salvation, & not concentrating on the harvest of souls that surround us?
• Are we merely enjoying the downhill walk of our grace given to us through Christ, & not focused upon the many lost who surround us, who are not ready to meet the Lord?

Truly, HOW IS OUR WALK?

“Now after this the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them in pairs ahead of Him to every city and place where He Himself was going to come.”  (Luke 10: 1 NASB)

• We are sent by God Himself—into the fields.
• We are sent with another, with another believer—who will help us in the fields, maybe as they pray.
• We are sent into the cities and places—wherever we go.
• We are sent primarily because—Jesus Himself will come.
• We are sent primarily because—the Holy Spirit of God will speak with someone’s soul.

We are sent.

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; . . .” (Luke 10: 2a NASB)

The lost exist where we work, where we shop, where we eat, where we play, where we study, and even across the dinner table where we live.

“therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.

Go; . . .” (Luke 10: 2b-3a NASB)

• We must “Go” wherever the Lord leads us to “Go.”
• We must “Go” wherever the Lord sends us.
• We must “Go” out into the Lord’s harvest.
• We must “Go.”
• We must “Go” & not hesitate to “Go.”

“behold, I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. . . .” (Luke 10: 3b NASB)

• Jesus knows His followers are His little lambs.
• Jesus knows we are weak without the Shepherd’s lead.
• Jesus knows we will “walk” aimlessly about—if we are not obediently following the Shepherd.
• Jesus knows the devil is “here in the world” striving to squash the gospel message.
• Jesus knows the devil is “bent” on killing our witness, our testimony.
• Jesus knows that we are in the midst of the devil as we “walk” within this world.
• Jesus knows how we must “walk closely beside Him” as we “Go.”

Jesus knows!

How is our walk with the Father?

Remember the grace you have received from God’s Amazing Love.

• Open & Study God’s Word.
• Share the Gospel message.
• Offer hospitality to those who have need.
• Show others how God’s little lambs depend upon the Lord, the Great Shepherd, even when we are most weak.
• Seek God.
• Walk with God.

Walk with God—even when the path is arduous.

Seek daily to produce the ‘Fruit of the Spirit’ that provides evidence to the world—that our God is living & is alive in us.

LOVE—JOY—PATIENCE—KINDNESS—GOODNESS—FAITHFULNESS—GENTLENESS—SELF-CONTROL.

• Let us love others beyond the “small talk” & let us walk through our today focused on the “real concern.”
• Let us love others as Jesus does, as we see them through God’s eyes.
• Let us love them as we share the “Good News” of Jesus Christ our Savior & Lord.
• Let us see them as either:  Lost to God—or—Already Found.