Oswold chambers writes in his book “My Utmost for His Highest,” that “When God, by His Spirit through His word, gives you a clear vision of His will, you must “Walk in the light” of that vision.”
When we are presented with a path that God has for us to walk upon, it presents with two alternatives. we can either walk in the light of that path, or we can walk in the darkness of being off of that path. Neither choice can be taken lightly however.
If we choose to walk in the darkness away from the path that God has shown us, we are walking in sin. “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts” it says in Hebrews 3:15a. In James 4:17 the Bible says, “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.” By walking away from the path that God has set for us, and revealed to us through His Holy Spirit, we present an additional problem for ourselves – sin separates us from God. By knowingly living apart from the path God has for us, we continually drive a wedge between ourselves and Him. Day by day. Week by week. We hit the hammer onto the top of the wedge and drive it deeper, pushing us farther and farther from God.
This presents a unique opportunity for our enemy. Since we are no longer walking with God with our whole heart, it allows the enemy to have some wiggle room in our lives. It allows him to slip in a little bit of doubt here, a question there. And since we have distanced ourselves from the Truth of Christ by taking our own path, we can not see the lies placed before us. In the experiences of my life, if we do not trust God entirely and exclusively, we can not trust Him at all. That is a very difficult statement to unpack. However, if we can pick and choose what parts of God’s revelation to us that we want to believe, then we can not trust how perfect and true it all is. Because if one part is false, then how can you tell if another part is false as well? Thus, by walking apart from the path God has chosen for us, by not walking in the light of that vision, we entrap ourselves in a level of bondage that can be very difficult to escape.
However, choosing to commit to walk in the light of the path that God has shown us presents its own unique challenges. First off, to commit means that we must be willing to let other opportunities pass by, as we set ourselves determinedly to trust God that the path that he has us on is the best for our lives. Rest assured that the enemy will make every opportunity he can to try to get us to take the shortcut, or to detour entirely. He will even try to use the well-intentioned advice of close friends, family, and maybe even church staff. However, as we stand strong on the Truth of Christ, through His strength, the vision God has given us will become that much clearer, and we will be ever more assured that we are walking with Him.
Secondly, choosing to commit to God’s path means that we must die to our own plans, dreams, desires, and wants. We must, in the words of Christ, deny ourselves and take up our cross daily (Luke 9:23.) By following God’s plan instead of our own, we are recognizing that God knows what He is doing, better than we do in our shortsighted views of this life and the world we live in. We are acknowlidging that God, with His ability to see the Big Picture, not of only what is going on in all of the world today, but also in all of the past and all of the future as well, knows where we are going and where we have been in relation to His plan for all of Creation.
Also, it also allows us to make decisions related to this area much more easily. If we are presented with two choices, one which will keep us on this same path and one which will divert us away, it becomes very easy to decide which direction to turn.
By walking in the light of the path God has shown us, it frees us to focus and concentrate more on His kingdom.