Good words, brother. I am grateful for the fact that just:
"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ" (Colossians 2:6-8).
We should walk in Him the same way we received Him. By selfless faith and trust in Jesus Christ. We live the Christian life the same way we started the Christian life. Faith in the completed work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Please permit me to share this thought by Harriet Beecher Stowe who conveys this truth accurately and eloquently.
"How does the branch bear fruit? Not by incessant effort for sunshine and air; not by vain struggles for those vivifying influences which give beauty to the blossom, and verdure to the leaf: it simply abides in the vine, in silent undisturbed union, and blossoms and fruit will appear as of spontaneous growth.
How, then, shall a Christian bear fruit? By efforts and struggles to obtain that which is freely given; by meditations and watchfulness, on prayer, on action, on temptations, and on dangers? No. There must be full concentration of the thoughts and affections on Christ; a complete surrender of the whole being to Him; a constant looking to Him for grace.
Christians in whom these dispositions are once firmly fixed go on calmly as the infant borne in the arms of its mother. In spiritual as in temporal matters they take no thought for the morrow; for they know that Christ will be as accessible tomorrow as today. Their hope and trust rest solely on what He is willing and able to do for them; on nothing that they suppose themselves able and willing to do for Him. Such is the “exchanged life,” the abiding, fruitful life, the life that is Christ, which should be in possession of every believer."
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