As you have received, so walk

A very short and simple verse caught my attention this morning:

"As you therefore have received Christ, so walk in Him" - Col. 2:6

When we received Christ - when we put our faith in Him - we did so with a recognition of our own great need and desperate sinfulness (why else would we be asking someone to save us, after all?). We received Him with lowliness of heart, throwing ourselves in utter dependance upon the grace He offered us (we had no illusions about our own inability to be righteous and blameless before God). And we received Him with incredible joy, with wonder and thanksgiving (how could we not have joy, when we saw that our sins were forgiven?).

Unfortunately, I don't think I walk with Christ now with those same qualities. It's easy to forget that I still need God to help me live rightly, and to start thinking that I can do something in my own strength to please Him and earn God's acceptance and approval (forgetting what should be obvious - that through Christ I am already accepted and approved!) And it's easy to become discouraged and saddened by my own failures and by the general state of the world, and lose sight of the joy that comes through Christ. But realization is the first step towards change, right? :) Moreover, when we're striving to remember these things and live life in this way, we're striving to make our perception of reality concur with what is actually real, which gives us a firmer foundation for our thoughts, decisions, and actions.