As children of God, we believers should walk in love and light, having our daily walk constituted both with the loving substance of God and the shining element of God. The more we love the Lord in incorruptibility, the more we as children of God will walk in love and light.
Love is the nature of God’s essence, it is the nature of what God is in His very substance and essence. Light is the nature of God’s expression, the nature of what God is in His expression.
Because we are children of God, we have His divine life and nature, and we can walk in love and light, the nature of God. What the Bible says concerning us, the believers in Christ, is that we were begotten of God, and we were given the authority to become children of God, who were born not of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God (John 1:12-13).
To all those who believe into the Lord, that is, to all those who receive the Lord Jesus into them as Savior and life, God gives them the authority to be called children of God, God’s species, God-men.
Being a child of God is not a metaphor, and we are not merely adopted by God because He loved us. The greatest wonder in the universe is that human beings could be begotten of God and that sinners such as us could be made children of God.
We are not only men, but God-men, divine human beings who have God as our life and as our nature. We have been born of God to have His divine life and His divine nature.
Now, because we have His life and nature, as beloved children of God, we should walk in love and light. We need to imitate our Father God not outwardly by striving and trying to do what the word of God says, but inwardly by walking according to the divine nature in us.
In Matt. 5:48 the Lord says, Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. We can be perfect, we can walk in love and light, and we can express God because we have His life and nature.
Our God is perfect especially in the matter of love, for He loves both the good and the evil, both those who deserve and those who don’t. If we are to be as perfect as our Father is perfect, we need to have His life and nature and live according to His divine nature in our spirit.
We can walk in love and light because of the divine nature within us.
On one hand we are intrinsically and constitutionally becoming the same as our Father God as we allow His element to grow, increase, and spread in us; on the other, we will walk in love and light, and we will be as perfect as He is, as we walk according to the divine nature.
We should Walk in Love and Light, the Inner Substance of God and the Expressed Element of God
As children of God, we should walk in love and light (see Eph. 5:2, 8).
We were once darkness (we were not just in darkness but because we were children of the devil we were darkness itself) but now we are light in the Lord; therefore, as children of light, we should walk in the light.
Also, as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, we should also walk in love. God is love (1 John 4:16); love is the inner substance of God. Love is the source of grace, and when love is expressed, it becomes grace.
Light is the nature of God’s expression; when God is expressed, He is light – God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. When light is expressed, it becomes truth; light is the source, and truth is the expression of light.
When the Lord Jesus came as the embodiment of God’s love and light, He came full of grace and reality (John 1:14) – He was full of the expression of love and light.
Christ came from God to express God, and God was revealed in the Lord Jesus; His love became grace, and His light became truth. He said that He is the way and the truth and the life (John 14:6), and when He came, grace came, for the disciples saw how He was full of grace and reality.
Light is the nature of God’s expression, and light is the expressed element of God. Our daily walk as children of God should be constituted with both the loving substance of God and the shining element of God; this should be the inner source of our daily walk.
We as believers in Christ are children of God, having His life and nature in us; His nature is love and light, and when we walk according to His divine nature, we walk in love and light to express God.
As children of God, we need to have the loving substance of God and the shining element of God as the inner source of our daily walk. This means that we need to spend much time in the word of God, being filled with Christ as the way, the truth, and the life, and then we need to walk according to the divine nature constituted into us.
We need to enjoy Christ as the truth in God’s word, and we will be brought into the divine light as the source of the truth; the result will be that we will walk in light.
We need to enjoy Christ as grace, that is, Christ as the all-sufficient portion for our daily supply, and we will be brought to Him as love, which is the source of grace; the result will be that we will walk in love.
When we have the truth, we will be brought to the Father as light; when we enjoy grace, we will be brought to the source of grace, which is God as love. The inward love of God is sensible, while the outward light of God is visible.
Our walk in love and light should be constituted of the loving substance and the shining element of God.
Lord Jesus, may we as children of God walk in love and light in our daily life. May our walk be constituted of both the loving substance and the shining element of God. Hallelujah, we have the divine nature of God in us, and we can walk according to this divine nature, so that our walk may be in light and in love. Amen, Lord, may the inner source of our daily walk be Your love and Your light, You as love and light. Keep us enjoying You as grace and truth so that we may be brought to You as love and light and walk in love and light!
We should Walk in Love and Light to Grow, be Sanctified, and be Built up in the Body
Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor; therefore, we should also walk in love (Eph. 5:2).
The church life according to God’s desire must be in love and light, both of which are the very elements of God Himself.
Love and light are the inner substance of God, and when we walk in love and light, we have the top church life – the church as the bride of Christ.
The goal of the book of Ephesians is to bring us, the believers in Christ, into God’s inner substance to know Him as love and as light. Here, in God’s inner substance where we can know Him, we are to live in intimate fellowship, as we enjoy the shining light and love in its sweetness.
In the condition and atmosphere of love, we are being saturated with God to be holy and without blemish before Him (Eph. 1:4). It is in this atmosphere of love that we are sanctified, that the divine element saturates us and replaces our natural element with the element of our Father God.
We need to remain in the condition and atmosphere of love to experience sanctification, to experience being made holy even as God is holy.
First, God loved us; when we see His love, we are inspired to love Him in return, and in such an atmosphere of love, we are saturated with God’s holy element to be as holy and without blemish as He is.
This is a mutual love: God loves us and we love God; in such a condition and atmosphere of love, we are being transformed by being saturated with God. Therefore, we need to be rooted and grounded in love (Eph. 3:17b).
We need to have both faith and love – by faith we are enabled to realize Christ and receive Him, and by love we are enabled to enjoy Him.
Both faith and love are not ours but His – His faith becomes our faith for us to believe in Him, and His love becomes our love to love Him.
The love in which we are rooted and grounded is the divine love realized and experienced by us in a practical way. With such a love we love the Lord, and with the same love we love one another.
We need to walk in love and light so that we may be sanctified and built up in the Body of Christ. May we let the Lord root us and ground us in His love, and may we walk in the light by allowing His truth to shine on us and in us.
May we experience the Lord’s love in a practical way day by day, realizing His love in our daily living and walking in love and light.
When we are rooted and grounded in love, we are built up in the Body of Christ, and the divine love is realized and experienced by us in a practical way.
Lord, we want to walk in love and light so that we may be sanctified and built up in the Body of Christ! Bring us into the inner substance of God so that we may enjoy His presence in the sweetness of the divine love, and thereby love others even as Christ did. Lord, keep us in the condition and atmosphere of love so that we may be saturated with God to be holy and without blemish before Him in love. May we be rooted and grounded in love to grow in life, be sanctified, and be built up in the divine love!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message given by Mark Raabe for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Ephesians, msgs. 33, 61 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking Christ as our Person and Living Him in and for the Church Life (2018 spring ITERO), week 5, Knowing the Significance of Loving the Lord, Loving the Lord Jesus Christ in Incorruptibility, and Walking in Love and Light.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Love bespeaks Thy very being, / What Thou dost is shown by light; / Love is inward, light is outward, / Love accompanies the light. / Love by grace is manifested, / And the light by truth is shown; / By Thy love we may enjoy Thee; / By Thy light Thou, Lord, art known. (Hymns #13)
# Walk in the light, and thou shalt know / That fellowship of love / His Spirit only can bestow, / Who reigns in light above. (Hymns #658)
# ’Tis by this inner life-anointing / I in fellowship may move; / In God, the light of truth, I’m walking, / And the love of grace I prove. (Hymns #266)
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