Walking With God

Nobody really needs to inform us about what it means to walk. We know that walking is moving about with our legs! If we’re going to get from one place to another, then walking is a manner of our lives. Physical walking is one of the most mundane things we can do. The average person walks about 3 mph; and 2-3 miles per day in just ordinary moving around. Someone who is 80 years old will have walked about 75,000 miles in their lifetime. That’s 3 trips around the earth! But we don’t do it all at once. Life is a long journey, but we walk a little bit every day. It is a lifelong exercise in consistency!

The life of a Christian is often referred to as a ‘walk’. Why? Because walking denotes progress over time. I was over there, and now I am over here! This is the process of sanctification! We grow when we walk with God.

Enoch Walked With God

Enoch walked with God for 300 years! Using our numbers above, that’s 275,000 miles (11 times around the earth)! We get a glimpse into what his walk was like in Hebrews 11:5, “By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; and he was not found because God took him up; for before he was taken up, he was attested to have been pleasing to God” (NASB). The King James translation says that “he had this testimony, that he pleased God”.

This word “testimony” is vitally important! In the original language of the New Testament, this comes from a form of the word “martyr”. We think of a martyr as one who dies for their cause. And that is true in some cases. Martyr actually means “witness”. We could say that “Enoch’s witness was pleasing to God”. A witness in the general sense is someone who sees something and tells about it. In the case of Enoch, he didn’t just see and tell… he experienced God! And his intimate experience of walking along side of God in fellowship affected his whole manner of living. For Enoch, his testimony was his expression of his walk with God. It was not just what he did, but who he was! This sounds like Enoch was concerned about his inner character!

Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Jude makes an interesting comment about Enoch making a prophecy about God’s reaction to the wicked: Enoch “prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord has come with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him. (NASB)” . Making such a confident statement about what God will do would indicate that Enoch knew his God! It is likely that God even told Enoch what He was going to do with the wicked all around him… and with the wicked in the future.

Walking is a Command

Just like Enoch walked with God, so we too are to walk with Him. In fact, it is commanded in scripture that we walk in the following ways:

Walk before Me and be blameless – Genesis 17:1 (directed specifically at Abram)
Walk by faith and not by sight – 2 Corinthians 5:7
Walk by the Spirit – Galatians 5:17
Walk in a manner worth of your calling – Ephesians 4:1
Walk in love – Ephesians 5:2
Walk as children of light – Ephesians 5:8
Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord – Colossians 1:10
As you have received Christ, walk in Him – Colossians 2:6

Holy Living

Walking with God means being with Him. It is enjoying His fellowship. This is the essence of worship! Holiness is often defined as “set apart”, “sanctified” and “consecrated for a specific purpose”. And while this is true, a more robust meaning would include wholeness and completeness.

The book of Leviticus is full of lessons on what it means to be holy. Leviticus 19:19 illustrates vividly how people who are called out by God are to be separate from the world. It does this by using cattle, seeds and material: “You are to keep My statutes. You shall not cross-breed two kinds of your cattle; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment of two kinds of material mixed together”.

There are things that just do not go together. The mixing of two different kinds of things that do not belong together creates confusion. “Holiness requires that individuals shall conform to the class to which they belong. And holiness requires that different classes of things shall not be confused”.

When we don’t conform to the holy position to which Christ called us, that is the very essence of perversity. We’ve fallen prey to the deceitfulness of sin by mixing the holy with the profane, and by doing so we damage our testimony. These are things that should not be! We MUST commit ourselves to a relentless pursuit of holiness!

Becoming Holy

How do we become holy? This is the process of sanctification, of which there are two aspects:
1). Divine action – Numbers 16:7 says, “the man whom the Lord chooses shall be the one who is holy”. Additionally in 2 Peter 1:3, we see that God’s “divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness”. (See also the common refrain “I am the Lord your sanctifier” in Leviticus 20:8; 21:8,15,23; 22:9,16,32).

2). Human action – God has supplied us with everything pertaining to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3), but we also have a critical part in our growth. In our faith we must be diligent to supply moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love. These must be the manner in which we walk and they are qualities that must be increasing as we walk! (2 Peter 1:5-8). This is a series of commands to us in God’s inspired scriptures. As such, sanctification is expressed through our obedience to God’s standard, clearly stated in Romans 6:17-19 (NASB):

But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.

Trust and Obey!

Daniel B. Towner wrote the words of Trust and Obey after he was at a meeting of testimonies. One man stood up and said, “I am not sure, but I am going to trust, and I am going to obey”. This was his witness in that meeting, and hopefully for the rest of his life!

We too, must walk with the Lord in His Word… and then trust and obey!

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