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The Lord requires, first of all, that we fear Him. Second, the Lord requires that we walk in all His ways.
The idea of “walking” gets at our normal, everyday routines, those activities and practices by which we sustain ourselves and make progress in our lives. God requires that, in all of these, we bring our practices into conformity with His “ways,” which He has revealed to us in His Word, beginning with this Law. Paul says that in whatever we do we must seek to glorify God (1 Cor. 10.31). This is what the Lord requires of us.
But we must note that it is not always necessary for us to understand the ways of the Lord before we agree to walk in them. Indeed, it is too much to expect that we can (Is. 55.8, 9). Certainly we must understand His ways well enough in order to carry out what He requires. For this we must apply ourselves to reading, meditation, study, and conversation with other believers. Believers in Jesus Christ have been endowed with the mind of Christ by virtue of the indwelling Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2.16). As Jesus was faithful in understanding and obeying all the Law of God, so must they strive to do who have come into possession – or rather, to be possessed of – the mind of Jesus Christ.
But we need not understand His ways entirely before we consent to walk in them. For example, how can we understand the command to give thanks always and in everything, when trials, sorrows, and obstructions come in our path? Job’s mistake was failing to give thanks and to rest in the grace and wisdom of God. Instead, he insisted on knowing what only God can know.
We must strive to understand as far as we can the ways that God requires us to walk. But we must walk them in obedience, by faith in the wise and good counsel of our Redeemer and Lord, and not always because we can make perfect sense of them with our finite and sin-stained reason.
T. M. Moore
The Law of God is the soil which, fertilized by the rest of God’s Word and watered by His Spirit, brings forth the fruit of Christian life. If you’d like to understand this process better, and how to make best use of the Law in your walk with and work for the Lord, order the book, The Ground for Christian Ethics, from our online store.
Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.