The Christian life gets described in a lot of ways, but one of the New Testament’s favorite pictures is simply a walk. Paul pleaded with the Ephesians to “walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called” (). A walk is ordinary, daily, one step after another, and that is exactly the point. A worthy life is not one grand gesture. It is the direction set by a thousand small steps. Paul names three marks of that walk, and each one asks something of us right where we live.
Walk in Love
“Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us” (). The command to love one another is not new, but the standard here is staggering. It is not merely to love, but to love “as Christ also hath loved us.” Jesus set that standard himself: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you” (). Then he showed what it meant, taking a towel to wash his disciples’ feet and finally laying down his life, so that John could write, “hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (). The particular edge Paul presses is forgiveness: “be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (; ). Some of us would sooner sacrifice for a brother than forgive one. Love that mirrors Christ is willing to do both.
Walk in Light
“For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light” (). The old life was marked by the things people do in the dark, and the new life is marked by what is “good and righteous and true” (). But Paul asks for more than simply avoiding evil. Children of light bring it into the open: “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (). Setting the wrong things aside is only half of it. We also put on what is right. Christianity was never meant to be only a list of things we no longer do. It is a life that shows, by what it now loves and practices, that the light has actually come on.
Walk in Wisdom
“See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (). Wisdom here is not anxious overthinking, and it is not drifting through life without a care. It is living on purpose, alert not only to the dangers around us but to the opportunities to do good while we have them. Where does that kind of wisdom come from? “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally” (). Yet God does not drop wisdom on us in our sleep any more than he drops bread out of the sky. Paul ties it to knowing God’s will: “be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is” (). Solomon said the same, that “the Lord giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding” (). We grow wise as we come to understand what God has actually said.
One Step at a Time
Love, light, and wisdom are not three separate lives but three angles on one worthy walk. So it is worth asking the honest question Paul’s letter presses on every reader: does my life actually line up with this? None of us walks it perfectly, but the direction is what matters, and the direction can change today. Walk in love. Walk in light. Walk in wisdom. Then take the next step, and the one after that, worthy of the God who called you.