Walking a Different Walk
Read: Ephesians 4:1-7
Reflect
When I was a young graduate student, I spent a summer as an intern at the United States Embassy in Gaborone, Botswana. One day the ambassador asked me to accompany him to visit some senior officials in the government. I remember getting in the ambassador’s black limousine. Just before we pulled away, the driver unfurled the small American flags which flew on the front of the car when it had the ambassador inside.
As we drove through the center of town, people stopped to stare at the huge vehicle. When we arrived and stepped out of the car, I could actually feel my posture, my demeanor, my very walk itself changing to accommodate the self-importance and sense of superiority I felt being with the man who represented the most powerful country on earth.
How much more so now does that attitude tempt me, since I have been summoned as a co-worker by the very God of the universe! The swagger and superiority I felt as a representative of the United States pales in comparison to the exalted position I now hold as a chosen son of the Most High God. How my chest should swell with victory!
But what am I reading in this passage? My walk should be “humble and gentle.” My demeanor should not be powerful, but rather, “patient.” The unity of the faithful is described not in the language of power, but instead with the “bond of peace.” Chests do not swell. Instead, heads bow.
This is not a posture familiar to the world, nor is it the posture of my prideful nature. It is the posture of a redeemed prisoner: free, yet forever beholding to his Redeemer. Unshackled, yet remembering the chains that were formerly his.
As believers we share that posture of hope and thankfulness. We are nothing if not a people bonded by our common heritage as former slaves. It is just so we welcome each other, and those who want to know us, as children of the King who chose us. For He “is over all and in all and through all,” and only through Him are we anything at all.
John Dupree
Respond
Pray for elder Darrell Bock, staff Diana Calvin, deacon John Partlow, and last names “P” and “Q” in our church body.
