Walk­ing in Christ sim­ply means imitating to be walk­ing in the foot­steps and exam­ples of Christ life. Walk­ing and living to be like Christ in all things – a disciple is not above his master, but he that is perfect shall be as his master. Luke 6:40.

Learn­ing and striv­ing to live like him as we prayerfully and thoughtfully apply the scriptures into our daily living as we walk before God day by day, to be more like Jesus the purpose of our salvation and the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit within. If we hold fast the con­fi­dence of our faith and trust in him which has began the god work in us with all our hearts, his faith­ful­ness shall see us through in our daily struggles, living, chal­lenges and expe­ri­ences in our spir­i­tual pil­grim­age to the end – he is able to save to the utter­most that come unto God by him, see­ing he ever lives to make inter­ces­sion for them.

In the first epis­tle of John chap­ter 2 verse 6, we read: he that saith he abide in him ought him­self to walk, even as he walked. This is a big and long walk with the Lord through the straight gate and nar­row. It is the only you walk wor­thy of the Lord unto all pleas­ing, being fruit­ful in every good work, and increas­ing in the knowl­edge of God. Matthew 7: 13-14. Colos­sians 1: 10.

The under­stand­ing of God is infi­nite and his great­ness is unsearchable as walk­ing in Christ is a vast teach­ing, wide, deep and great until we are called home to see him as he is and t finally be like him – transform into his likeness and glory. There are twelve major char­ac­ter­is­tics or man­ners of walk­ing with Christ in the scrip­tures. The first is walk­ing in the love of God, as well as walk­ing and grow­ing in the love of the brethren. Our under­stand­ing of the scrip­tures con­cern­ing the death and res­ur­rec­tion of Jesus Christ from opens our eyes to the unmer­ited love of God in the substitution of Christ to die for us while we were yet sin­ners. There is noth­ing that can sat­isfy the heart of God than our constant appre­ci­a­tion of Christ love in the consideration and demonstration of esteem­ing him above any­thing or any­one else in our lives, not even count­ing our lives dear unto us while we please and live for him who loved us and gave his life for us in the fulfillment of the com­manded to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, and with all our souls, and with all our mind. Romans 5:7- 8. 2 Corinthi­ans 5: 14. Matthew 22; 37– 39.

Walk­ing in the love of God requires an unquench­able and increasing burn­ing zeal, affec­tion and desire that no one can sat­isfy in us except him. It is in the discipline of daily fellowship with God in prayer and meditation in his word. The Lord shall lead us daily as he daily into green pas­tures for growth, renewal and refreshment as we draw­ water with joy from the well of his sal­va­tion. The primary purpose of this daily exercise to enable us to minister to others and be bring­ing forth herbs (be a blessings and instrument of it) for the peo­ple in and around us -for whose sake we have been called and saved to bring them as well to Christ. Rev­e­la­tion 3: 15-16. Hebrews 6; 7- 8. Matthew10: 37- 39.

He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him…..thus the desire of our soul is always unto him whom we have come to love and dis­cov­er that his love is bet­ter than wine and will never trade it nor attempt to exchange it for any­thing. Noth­ing again is going to sep­a­rate us from that love which is stronger than death, life itself, things present, things to come, angels, prin­ci­pal­i­ties, pow­ers and any other crea­tures….for we know that we are alive because of the love of Christ. The inten­sity and gen­uine­ness of our love for God and his Christ is deter­mined in the demon­stra­tions of our sub­mis­sion and obe­di­ence to Word of God and teachings of Christ….for this is the love of God, that we keep his com­mand­ments and his com­mand­ments are not griev­ous. 1 John 5; 1-3. Songs of Solomon 1: 4. Romans 8: 35-39.

The Lord con­nected relationship and the love of God to do his bid­dings and liv­ing by his Word as lov­ing God…hence he asked, why call me Lord, Lord, and you do not do the things I asked you to do? It is a folly and self-​deception in lips ser­vice if our belief ends up with our pro­fes­sion and there is no back up actions as we con­tinue living for Christ in the conformity to the Word of God. Christ became the author of eter­nal sal­va­tion unto all them that obey him. Luke 6: 46. John 15; 9-10. Matthew 7; 21 – 23. Philip­pi­ans 1:27. Hebrews 5; 8 -9. James 1; 22– 25.

God requires com­plete, instant, in-​disputable and unin­ter­rupted obe­di­ence from us as his lov­ing children. We can­not be living careless life and be spared from the enemy’s bondage and attacks upon our lives if only we hear or read and do not live by his word, which is meant to be our shield and buck­ler; nei­ther can we remain a child of God, nor shall we make heaven if we don’t con­tinue to obey or live daily by his word, for the Lord knows them that are his, and let every­one that name the name of Christ departs from iniq­uity; for iniq­uity is the trans­gres­sion of the law, and you know that he was man­i­fested to take away our sins.  

We must always obey the teach­ings of Christ as our part to make sure our sal­va­tion which he has pur­chased for us through his blood on the cross and we should never be naïve to the ideas of the heretic teach­ers and pas­tors that as long and as much that you’ve believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, with­out giv­ing all dili­gence to make your call­ing and elec­tion sure, you shall be saved. Philip­pi­ans 2: 12-14. Hebrews 2:1-3. 2 Peter 1; 5-12. . John 8:30-32.

Love is con­ta­gious — the pro­por­tion, inten­sity and rev­er­ence of our love for God deter­mine the mea­sure of love that we are able to share with oth­ers in the body of Christ. As we grow in our love with Christ and for him, so we are inspire to share and give part of that love to his and our brethren: much more, with our ene­mies, for we are com­manded not to be over­come with evil, but to over­come evil with good which is only pos­si­ble through the heart of love which does no evil to his neigh­bour. Every believer is God’s vine­yard. In this gar­den has been planted the tree of God’s joy, peace, good­ness and love which is shed abroad into our hearts by the Holy Ghost to yield­ and pro­duc­es fruit in his sea­son. The first and best fruit is love. In God’s king­dom, love is the fore­most and the bond of per­fec­tion because God is love.

Love brings us into his king­dom– for God so Love the world that he gave his only begot­ten Son – God demon­strated his love toward us, in that while we are yet sin­ners, Christ died for us.…Love is the great­est and every­thing must be done or moti­vated by love: if not, it’s not accept­able before God.1 Corinthi­ans 13: 1 – 3 and 13. 1 Corinthi­ans 16; 13 – 14.

We must strive to imi­tate our dear heav­enly Father and Christ who does every­thing out of his love to redeem us (Isa­iah 63:9) to cor­rect and chas­tens us when we err (Proverbs 3;12. Hebrews 12; 6. Rev­e­la­tion 3; 19) lov­ing us con­tin­u­ally and unfail­ingly for love does not fail (Jere­miah 31; 3).

We also want to walk in the nature of God’s love which does not have respects of per­son –This love deals with speak­ing the truth as it is among oth­ers – he that speaks truth shows forth right­eous­ness in equal and just deal­ings and jus­tice. Speak­ing the truth in love–​This is a very seri­ous mat­ter as not many peo­ple love to be rebuke and cor­rect in a free world, yet we must strive to resem­ble the heav­enly Father of truth with­out iniq­uity, by call­ing spade a spade, light a light, and dark­ness a dark­ness, for we must not hold the truth from peo­ple in and around us, lest we be found guilty of their blood–​not hold­ing the truth in unright­eous­ness–​not walk­ing in crafti­ness nor han­dling the word of God deceit­fully. Our busi­ness is just to pleased God in every­thing and do the right thing all the times to have a con­science void of offense towards God and man.1 Tim­o­thy 5; 20 – 21. James 2; 8 – 9. 2 Samuel 23; 3. Leviti­cus 19;15. Proverbs 26; 28. Proverbs 29; 5. Eph­esians 4; 15.

The love of the brethren must be from a pure heart which has noth­ing to do with seduc­tion, manip­u­la­tion, deceit and promis­cu­ity in the church among the brethren. Sleep­ing or com­mit­ting for­ni­ca­tion with fel­low believer in casual sex is like spir­i­tual incest and folly for both are bought by the blood of Jesus and are of the same body — the younger must be con­sider as sis­ter, with all purity. In Philip­pi­ans chap­ter 1, verses 9 – 11, apos­tle Paul pray that your love may abound (increase or grow­ing) yet more and more in knowl­edge and in all judg­ment; that you may approve things that are excel­lent; that ye may be sin­cere and with­out offense till the day of Christ; being filled with the fruits of right­eous­ness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God: while in 2 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans chap­ter 1 verse 3, he says we are bound to thank God for you, brethren, because that your faith groweth exceed­ingly, and the char­ity of every one of you all toward each other abound­eth. . 1 Peter 1; 22– 23. Eph­esians 5; 1 – 6. 1 Tim­o­thy 5; 1 – 2. Proverbs 22;11. Romans 14; 11 – 15.

3 prin­ci­ples and the keys to increase in broth­erly love.

1. Over­com­ing the spirit of high self esti­ma­tion (Pride)

With the pres­ence of this demonic spirit in the church, where we ought to con­sider other bet­ter than our­selves, there can be no growth in broth­erly love. When oth­ers feels that they are looked down upon and regarded as non – spir­i­tual or non essen­tial in a place where those mem­bers of the body, which seem to be more fee­ble are nec­es­sary: and those mem­bers of the body, which we think to be less hon­or­able upon whom we should bestow more abun­dant honor are despised: then shall there shall be con­tempt and mal­ice in the place of sin­gle mind­ed­ness: and hatred in the place of love.

We are all brethren and the great­est among us should be the ser­vant of all. Worldly men­tal­ity of class and rank should not be found in the local church if we expect to grow in broth­erly love: if a man thinks him­self to be some­thing, when he is noth­ing he deceives him­self. I am bet­ter than thou spirit should not be found in the church, if we are to be kindly affec­tion­ate one to another in broth­erly love, in honor pre­fer­ring one another; or in order word as apos­tle Paul put it in Philip­pi­ans 2 verse 3, let each esteem other bet­ter than them­selves….in these things can Christ love flour­ishes among the brethren in the local church and uni­ver­sal body of Christ. Philip­pi­ans 2;3. Romans 12; verses10 and 16. 1 Corinthi­ans 4; 6 – 7.

2. Over­com­ing self­ish mind and stingi­ness (self centeredness)

You can­not sep­a­rate love from giv­ing. True love is not in word but in deed. The exam­ples from the early church should be enough for us to learn as they do all things in com­mon and none pro­claimed his own what belongs to him. Peo­ple should look out for one another, if you sow love, you shall reap the same, for man that has friend, must show him­self friendly – we are all our brother’s keeper. When we turn to be our brother’s keeper our love is becom­ing Christ love in the con­fi­dence and bold­ness that we are build­ing for us against the day of judg­ment that as he is in the world, even so are we –love. Good work is an oblig­a­tion for a true child of God, to the grate­ful and the ungrate­ful, good or bad, right­eous or sin­ners as we have oppor­tu­nity. We should not be weary from doing good. If you stop for dis­cour­age­ments and crit­i­cism or ungrate­ful­ness, it also becomes a sin–​to him that knows how to do good and does not do it, is sin.1 John 3; 17 – 19.

We are liv­ing in a church world today that if you can’t make it on your own, bring money to the church, wear a gay cloth­ing, you are not con­sider as a good mem­ber of that assem­bly! Hardly can we find a true bear ye one another bur­den of Christ church today (though there are, but very few.) Nobody wants the blind Bartholomew or Lazarus the beg­gar as a mem­ber, but every­body want the great Shu­na­mite woman or Cor­nelius which give much alms to the peo­ple as mem­bers. We are in a church age that pas­tors are embez­zling the church funds and van­ish­ing away or divert­ing the major parts of the funds for his self­ish end gain and use while some church mem­bers are los­ing house because they lost their jobs and can­not meet up with bills. As the result of finan­cial greed­i­ness and self­ish­ness of the pas­tor and its board of trustee, the church is scat­tered, bro­ken and divided. What do you do in such a sit­u­a­tion? Do you get offended and walk away from Christ? You can­not and must not do that, for blessed is he that shall not be offended in him.

3. Pos­sess­ing the spirit of ser­vant–​hood.

You can see true love in the spirit of self denial. We are com­manded to serve one another in love, just like our Lord and Sav­ior Jesus put on him the form of a ser­vant, hum­bled him­self to serve us in love till death. Christ washed the feet of his dis­ci­ples for a pat­tern of an hum­bled life as we bring our­selves down to ren­der ser­vice to the low­est and the unpop­u­lar among us, for the encour­age­ment and con­tin­u­a­tion of broth­erly love. God resist the proud and the great­est accord­ing to God is not the man sit­ting on the front row because of his worldly per­son­al­ity and pop­u­lar­ity; but that man and woman, sweep­ing the floor, keep­ing the gate and con­duct­ing order­li­ness and other insignif­i­cant work in the house of God.

If no one is sit­ting as chief in the local church but all have the mind to serve one another in love (even though we must esteem some highly in love for their works sake) broth­erly love shall con­tinue and increase in the unity of spirit among the brethren. Matthew 23; 8 – 12. Gala­tians 5; 13 – 15. John 13; 12 – 17. 1 Peter 5; 1– 5.