What does it mean to walk with God? Those who are concerned about having a real walk with God do not want organization, promotion, or the prestige of money and success. People would be foolish to come into the Spirit-led walk that God is now bringing forth in order to fulfill great ambitions in their lives. It is a way of such total discipleship that if they do not want a walk with God they should turn away from it with all their hearts and try to find something else.
Genesis 5:21–27 tells about a man who walked with God. And Enoch lived sixty-five years, and became the father of Methuselah. Then Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he became the father of Methuselah, and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him. And Methuselah lived one hundred and eighty-seven years, and became the father of Lamech. Then Methuselah lived seven hundred and eighty-two years after he became the father of Lamech, and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years, and he died. Little is known about Methuselah. His only claim to fame was that he lived 969 years, longer than any man recorded in sacred Scriptures. But this riddle based upon the Scriptures, “The oldest man who ever lived died before his father did,” tells us that Enoch, Methuselah’s father, never died. He lived 365 years, and he was not, for God took him.
The Word says that Enoch walked with God. Look up “walk” in a concordance and note the various people who walked with God. It is astounding how those people endeavored to live the whole of their lives in union and fellowship with the Lord, walking in all the light and truth that He revealed, eager to be fully obedient in anything He set before them to do. This was true of Enoch.
Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied of the great coming of the Lord with His mighty hosts (Jude 14). Hebrews 11:5–6, in that tremendous roll call of faith where Abel is mentioned first, is the passage about Enoch. By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death; and he was not found because God took him up; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God. And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.
We might use our imagination and picture a way that Enoch may have been taken up. Enoch and God used to have wonderful little walks together. But one day they walked a little farther than usual. God and Enoch had been talking about so many things that they forgot to watch the time. And as the sun was going down, God said to Enoch, “It is a long way back—why not come home and have supper with Me tonight?” And he was not, for God took him.
Oh, to be able to spend one’s life in the close fellowship with the Lord that Enoch had! To live with Him and to walk with Him must be the desire of a believer’s heart. Great responsibilities are nothing in themselves—only as they are related to walking with Him. A man cannot walk with Him without doing His will with all his heart, communing with Him and loving Him.
By faith Enoch walked with God and had a witness that he was well-pleasing to the Lord. Without faith it is impossible to please God. A man who comes to the Lord must believe that the Lord is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. The Lord is not some benevolent spirit like Buddha, or some mystical, great universal mind everyone can tune in to.
The world has its opinions of God, in one way or another. The atheists have built seminaries to support their concept that there is no God. Other people merely have a vague idea about God. But the Word says to believe that He is—that He is the God whom He reveals Himself to be in His Word. He is not known apart from divine revelation; if you look for God among the bees and the flowers, you may get stung! Believe that He is the God He has revealed Himself to be to your heart.
When a revelation comes about the Lord, the first thing to do, if you would walk with God and please Him, is to accept what He reveals Himself to be. Then when feelings are not there and deep dealings or circumstances seem to give opposite evidence to what He says about Himself, look up to the Father and believe Him to be what He already revealed to your heart that He is. Believe that He loves you. When He has given you a promise, believe the promise—not what the enemy tells you. When He reveals Himself as your Lord, then you must respond to that moment of revelation as His bond-servant.
Do not accept a revelation from the Lord of Himself (of anything that He is, of anything that He wants to be to you, or of anything according to His grace that He has done for you at Calvary’s cross) without it becoming real to you. Believe that God is what He says He is. That becomes the basis of your walking with God. When it is not a revelation to you, that is another matter. But when He has revealed it, and you read the Word that shows who He is, what He has done for you, and what He is going to be to you, then you cannot back away from it and still claim to have a walk with God. Your walk begins by accepting Jesus Christ for what He says He is and what He reveals Himself to be.
The cardinal truth that opens up the end time and the Kingdom is the fact that Jesus Christ is the Lord of lords and King of kings (Revelation 19:16). And when you know Him as Lord and submit to that, it becomes a revelation that you cannot turn away from; you cannot ignore it and you cannot lay it down. He is to be the Lord over your life, and you are to serve Him, or you will not have a walk with God. You dare not halfheartedly accept the revelation of Him only in the areas of your life where you are willing. Come to grips with the areas where He says, “I am moving in. I am going to be on the throne, and you will be dethroned. Everything that you are is to be submissive to Me.”
True submission is a key to walking with God. Believe that He is, and that He is the Lord whom He reveals Himself to be: that He is your Savior, that He is your sanctifier, that He is the One who walks with you. Believe in His holy presence. Believe and accept all these truths as they are related to you personally. Believe them personally, not lightheartedly as theories of Scriptural truths. Do not assent to the Word and still ignore its relationship to your own life. Believe that He is, and that He is to you what He says He is in the Word. Then be to Him what He demands of you in that relationship. Enoch did it, and he had a testimony that he pleased God.
The Word says that God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. That, too, you must believe. Believe that He loves you individually. Seek Him and He will meet you. You can meet the Lord again and again, but not at His initiative. Kick the door down! Fast and wait before the Lord. He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Seek Him and believe that He will reward you and that He will meet you. He may not give you what you ask for today, but the real reward will come later. Listen and wait and believe that it is going to come. Seek Him today and He will give you an answer. He will give you a meeting and you will press on, one step after another, because He is the God that He says He is to you. When you seek Him, He will reward you.
All of this will help you to be pleasing to the Lord. It is a high ambition to be well-pleasing to the Lord, when you might just be content to be an unprofitable servant who has done all that he was told to do. Go a little further and be well-pleasing to the Lord, according to Colossians 1:9–11a. For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience.
You can be filled with the knowledge of His will. The winner who pleases God is one who does the will of God and comes across the finish line beaming and smiling. Of course you could fall across the line, breathing hard, “I made it! I made it!” But to come to the place of attaining all steadfastness and patience, to come into the full expression of everything that He wants you to be, well-pleasing unto the Lord—that is the winner you are to be. Therefore, draw upon all the strength and the blessings that God has for you.
If you want to walk with God and move into everything He has for you, listen to what He says He is, and claim Him in every aspect of His commitment to you. After all, He is God and He is unlimited. Therefore, He does not have to have any responsibility for His creatures. He can create them, and they can live and die like the flowers which bloom in the desert and fade. Nothing compels God to love or to commit Himself to people. In the Word there is an attribute of God called “omnipotence,” meaning that He is all-powerful; and because He is all-powerful, He is unlimited. There is no limit to God—not one; but each book in the Bible lays restrictions on an unlimited God, because every promise of God is a commitment.
Here is an illustration of the way that God commits Himself to you. When a person signs a contract to buy some furniture, he receives the furniture, but he is restricted from that time on. There will be definite inroads into his assets and a commitment of what he will have to do—on a certain day he will have to pay. Payments will take away from what he has and what he can do. Any promise he makes in his business will restrict him.
God has restricted Himself by committing Himself through His promises. The Epistle of Paul to Titus tells about the God of promises who cannot lie (Titus 1:2). He is incapable of telling a falsehood. In every promise He limits Himself. In promising to do the impossible, He obligates Himself to do it. He limits and restricts Himself in His commitments to us because He loves us. He sees our limitations and our restrictions, but that we want to walk with Him and be well-pleasing to Him, and so He limits Himself too. God promises us that out of His unlimited power He will meet us in our limitations, so that we do not have to bear any limitations. He offers it freely of His own accord. He says, “Call unto Me” (but He does not have to promise) “and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not” (Jeremiah 33:3). God promises that there will not be any extension or boundary where He will cease to answer or to move in our behalf.
Enoch walked with God, and he had a witness that he was well-pleasing to the Lord. The reason that he pleased the Lord was because of his faith. He believed that God was everything that He revealed Himself to be. He believed that as he sought the Lord, that revelation would become real in his life. It was so glorious that he was translated and did not even see death. He bypassed everything that seemed to be a limit and an ultimate end of man’s existence. He reached into that which was completely unlimited because he dared to believe God’s commitment of Himself to his heart.
Believe the Lord, and face the fact that God has revealed Himself to be a number of things that cannot be regarded lightly. Believe that He is going to do what He says He is going to do. His promises are true and they are a commitment to you. Seek Him and they will be yours. He will reward you. It may sound very simple and childlike, but it is true. The longer you walk in what God is now revealing, the more you must ignore every conflicting evidence and say, “Lord, I accept what You have revealed Yourself to be to me; and I believe that You will be that to me personally, because I am going to seek Your face with all my heart. I will not back away from anything.”
Josiah was merely a young lad when he became king over Judah. In II Kings 23:1–3, we read that Josiah called in all the elders, all the prophets, and all the people of Judah and Jerusalem to hear the reading of the Law in the Word. When the reading was finished, Josiah stood and made a covenant to walk with God, according to the words that he heard, with all his heart, his soul, his mind, and his strength. Verse 25 says that there was never a king like Josiah before or after him who served God with all of his heart and soul and mind and strength. Josiah walked with God with a glorious determination, knowing what the Lord wanted and knowing what the Lord was going to be to him and to the people. God bless the memory of Josiah and give us the same attitude of mind and heart.
Do you see what it means to walk with the Lord? If you have had some revelation and truths made real to you, and yet you are not working at them as you should, that is where you miss walking with God. A walk with God comes when you are working at everything He has revealed Himself to be to you. If you have been lazy, repent. Responsibility comes with the truth. With every ray of light that you receive there comes a great deal of responsibility. You are responsible to walk wholeheartedly in every word that God speaks to your heart.