You can tell a lot about a person by how he or she walks. Some people walk with a limp, and it tells us that they could have some type of physical ailment. Some people walk with their eyes toward the ground, never looking directly at those they pass, and it might say that they are somewhat shy or insecure. Others walk with their heads up, greeting those they pass, and it gives us the impression that they are full of confidence. Now, I realized that in the physical realm, the way a person walks might not tell us anything. However, spiritually speaking, it always does.

How is your walk spiritually? The Bible has a whole lot to say about how we should walk. For the next couple of weeks, as we wind down for the night, let us consider how we should and should not walk. A good place to start is with the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:7.

2 Corinthians 5:7 (ESV)
⁷ For we walk by faith, not by sight.

Are you walking by faith? To walk by faith is to live according to the Word of God, for the Word is the source of our faith. Some believe that faith comes to man in a monergistic fashion. Monergism is a doctrine held by the majority of churches that came out of the 16th century Reformation Movement. It teaches that faith comes through a miraculous measure of the Holy Spirit, bringing about salvation apart from an individual’s cooperation. Such teaching, however, is at odds with the Bible. Paul tells us how faith is really produced.

Romans 10:17 (ESV)
¹⁷ So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

So, it is through God’s Word that we get faith, not a miraculous outpouring of the Holy Spirit. When we hear the Word of God and live by it, we are walking by faith, and walking by faith is the only way we can be faithful to God and make it to heaven.

We walk by faith when we truly believe what the Bible teaches and live by it. In the immediate context of Paul’s statement in 2 Corinthians 5:7, he was speaking of the time when our physical bodies are transformed to spiritual ones. He calls our future bodies “a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (ver. 1). It is hard for us to perceive of being clothed with a body that is spiritual, but we accept it because God said it. Paul had much more to say about these new bodies in 1 Corinthians 15. Our present bodies are perishable, but some day they will be transformed into imperishable ones. Now they are weak and frail, but one day they will be raised in power (1 Corinthians 15:42-44).

Do you look forward to the time when your soul is clothed with a body that is spiritual, and one in which there is no pain or sorrow? If you walk by faith, you do because the Bible teaches it.

While our future bodies are what Paul is speaking of in 2 Corinthians 5, to walk by faith is to accept everything that God says. In the previous chapter of 2 Corinthians, Paul said, “Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, ‘I believed, and so I spoke,’ we also believe, and so we also speak” (2 Corinthians 4:13). Do you believe what is written? Are you living by it? If so, you are walking by faith.

As you wind down for the night, think on these things.