Walking with Jesus / An Original Work / May 4, 2011
When you walk with Jesus only,
And you spend your days with Him,
He becomes your dearest friend,
And your desire’s to be with Him.
Sitting with him at his table,
As He breaks the bread with you,
Oh, what sweet and blessed communion,
As He comes and sups with you.
Living for Him, oh, what glory,
Walking daily in His truth;
Leading others to adore Him
Is what He desires of you.
Song Lyrics @ Public Domain
https://sites.google.com/site/psalmshymnssongs/home/songs/walking-with-jesus
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Matthew 26-28 (quoting 26:17-30):
The Lord’s Supper
17 On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”
18 He replied, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, ‘The Teacher says: My appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house.’” 19 So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover.
20 When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the Twelve. 21 And while they were eating, he said, “I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me.”
22 They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, “Surely not I, Lord?”
23 Jesus replied, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. 24 The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.”
25 Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, “Surely not I, Rabbi?”
Jesus answered, “Yes, it is you.”
26 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”
27 Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
30 When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Philippians 3:10-11 says: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
Galatians 2:20 says: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Romans 6:5-7 says: “If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.”My Understanding: When we come into relationship with Jesus Christ by his grace and through faith in Him as Savior and Lord of our lives, via turning from our sin and turning to walk in faith and obedience to Jesus Christ, our old lives are crucified with Christ, and we are raised to walk with Christ in a completely new life, given to us of the Spirit of God. When Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, which this act of taking communion symbolizes, he took upon himself the sins of the entire world. Our sins died with him, and were buried with him. Then he rose from the dead, triumphing over our sins so that we could be free from the penalty, bondage to and the control of sin over our day-to-day lives. So, when we come into relationship with Jesus Christ, we also die to our sins, we bury them with him, leaving them behind. Then, we are raised with Christ to live and to walk with him in completely new lives, free from the control of sin, and now we are slaves, instead, to righteousness. Our physical baptism symbolizes this death to sin and to our old lives, the burial of our sins, and this resurrection to new life in Christ Jesus where we no longer live, but Christ lives in us.
This is how our walk with Jesus Christ begins. We cannot walk with him in that sweet communion daily if we have not first of all come to his cross and crucified our sins and our fleshly desires and appetites, and only after we have made a commitment to walk with him in faith and obedience, to what extent we understand of what that means at that time. Our daily lives are a continual renewal of that commitment, as we must choose daily to die to our sins and to walk in newness of life in faith and obedience to Jesus Christ. Jesus told us that if we want to follow him we must deny ourselves (our flesh nature) and we must take up our cross DAILY and follow him, for whoever wants to save his life (his old life) will lose it (for eternity), but whoever loses his life (crucifies the flesh) for Christ’s sake will find it (eternal life with God beginning right now). He also tells us that we must remain in him and his words must remain (continue; endure; persist) in us so that we can bear much fruit, thus showing ourselves to be his true disciples (see Luke 9:23-25 and John 15:1-17).
To walk with someone means to be alongside them in whatever they are going through, to feel what they feel, to share their burdens, their joys, etc. To walk with Jesus Christ means the same thing. It begins with our death and new lives, and then with the understanding that walking with Jesus Christ means to walk where he walked, to experience what he experienced, as much as is possible, and to share in the fellowship of his sufferings, his victories, his joys, etc. When Jesus walked the earth, he healed the sick, he bound up the injured, he brought back the strays, he preached the “Good News”, he confronted sin in people’s lives, but he also gave them a message of hope and healing, he ministered to people’s needs, but he also spoke hard truths that many rejected. Some loved him and others hated him. Some were jealous of him and made it their goal to try to destroy him. They thought they were successful when they crucified him on the cross, but he came back to life, and he was victorious over their attempts to try to end his life, because he is God.
So, to walk with Jesus Christ means that we should do the same (or similar) things as Jesus did. We should care about the hurting, the lonely, the forsaken, the sinful, the wayward, the accused, the frustrated, the wicked, the sick and afflicted, etc., and we should meet them in their need as the Lord Jesus gives us opportunity to do so. As well, we should offer them the hope of salvation and of eternal life with Jesus Christ by sharing with them the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the truth about what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. We are offering no hope and no healing when we short-circuit the gospel message and we try to water it down to where we leave out words such as sin, repentance and obedience and where we give people a false hope of eternal life with God. We are offering no message of consolation and comfort if we leave people in their sins and we do nothing to let them know that Jesus came to set them free. Walking with Jesus Christ means following in his footsteps, following his example, and allowing him to continue his ministry through our lives. If we are truly following Jesus Christ and are walking with him in his footsteps, then we should also share in his victories, joys, sorrows, grief, suffering and death.
Jesus Christ had many followers, yet when his teaching became tougher, many deserted him. When we teach the hard truths of the word of God, many of our friends and companions may desert us, as well. His closest friends and companions all fled when he was going through his worst suffering of all. When we are going through times of great difficulty, some of our closest friends may bail, as well. One of his closest friends betrayed him. Some of ours may betray us, too. One of his closest companions denied him three times, even vehemently. Some of our friends, companions or even family members may find us to be an embarrassment to them or they might fear that association with us might get them rejected, too, and so they may deny us and their relationship with us in many ways. Jesus asked his disciples, who were his closest friends, to keep watch with him and to pray with him when he was struggling emotionally with the thought of what he knew was coming next – his crucifixion – and yet they kept falling asleep. Many of our friends and brothers and sisters in Christ may forget about us, too, in our times of greatest need, because they are not really sensitive to what is going on in our lives.
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day arrested him, accused him falsely, incited the crowd against him, spit on him, mocked him, struck him with their fists, slapped him, flogged him, stripped him of his clothing and his dignity, a crown of thorns was placed upon his head, they despised and rejected him, hurled insults at him, and then they crucified him. We, as well, may face such persecution even to the point of dying a literal death for our faith in Jesus Christ, and even at the hands of the religious leaders of our day. We may experience this in the physical realm, as did Jesus, and/or we may face this same kind of treatment, only more from people’s words, attitudes and behavior toward us in a more social realm. All of this goes along with walking with Jesus, too.
The song ends with “leading others to adore Him is what he desires of you.” And, Matthew 28 ends with Jesus giving his disciples his final instructions to them before he left this earth.
Jesus told them to: 1. Go, 2. Make disciples (followers of Jesus Christ), 3. Baptize (symbolizes repentance - our death to old life, burial of our sins, and resurrection to new life in Christ Jesus), and 4. Teach them to obey all that Jesus Christ commanded when he was on the earth. So, walking with Jesus Christ and leading others to adore Him means that we go to the people, we disciple them into a walk of faith and obedience to Jesus Christ, we baptize and we teach the meaning of baptism, which is death to our old lives (repentance), and we teach them to obey (obedience) all that Jesus Christ commanded.
We cannot adore Jesus Christ if we are still living in our sins and we are still walking according to the flesh and to our own fleshly desires. We cannot have sweet communion with him if we are not abiding and remaining in him daily and if we are not daily taking up our crosses to follow him. This kind of sweet fellowship with Christ Jesus, our Lord, begins at the cross and continues at the cross as we die daily to our flesh and we live by faith in Jesus Christ with his Spirit living within us and out through us as we walk the walk that Jesus walked in our daily lives.
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