WALKING WITH GOD

 

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

                               Genesis 3:8

 

Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.

                               Genesis 5:24

 

These are the generations of Noah, for Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God.

                               Genesis 6:9

 

Adam and Eve walked away from God.  Enoch and Noah walked with God. Those are the only two possibilities. The life each of us lives is either spent walking with God or away from God. Until you meet God in some way you can’t walk with him or away from him. But once the living God has broken in upon your life, and in some way spoken to you, then your walk becomes the most significant and crucial thing in your life.

 

Many of us are inclined to have moments when we draw near and worship God followed by days in which the lives we live are clearly a walking away from him. Adam knew God ... but walked away. Eve knew God ... but walked away. Cain knew God... but his walk was toward the darkness. These moments when we draw near to God in worship are genuine only if the life we live between our visions and our ecstasies is spent walking with God. Abraham the father of faith built his altars and had his moments of vision, but that's not what made Abraham the father of faith. The thing that made Abraham the father of faith was the life he lived between those altars. Those altars Abraham erected were genuine worship and not a sham because between altars Abraham, like Enoch and Noah before him, walked with God,

 

When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless....

Genesis 17:1

 

And that's what Abraham did.

 

So our gathering for worship and our private daily adoration of the glory of God will bring us into the atmosphere of heaven and nourish us with the life of heaven only if the life we live between these gatherings and these moments of concentrated praise is lived in step with God, walking with God.

 

He has showed you, 0 man, what is good;

  and what does the Lord require of you

But to do Justice, and to love kindness,

  and to walk humbly with your God?

                                            Micah 6:8

 

The second Adam did what the first Adam failed to do: walked with God.... he did justice, he loved mercy, he walked humbly with his God. The characteristic thing about Jesus' life was not his visions, or his experiences, or even his miracles, but his walk. Jesus manifested God’s mercy in a simple down-to-earth life. A life lived day in and day out in union with the Father.

 

We have spent far too much time pursuing visions, ecstasies, experiences, while our walk was often, in fact, away from God. What we need to do is concentrate on the walk and let God supply the visions and the ecstasies and the experiences as he sees fit.

 

If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us have no self-conceit, no provoking of one another, no envy of one another.

                                                                              Galatians 5:25-26

 

Look carefully then how you walk not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil.

                                                                              Ephesians 5:15-16

 

The Spirit is talking about a walk. So that now instead of forever chasing blessings and experiences I find my joy in the God who walks beside me, above me, beneath me, around me, within me. My supreme blessing is God himself, God my Savior, God my companion, God my friend, God my everything. I see my worth not in my achievements or in my acquisitions or in my status before human eyes, but in this awesome friendship with the living God, won for me by the Lamb and sustained to me by the Lamb. Now I no longer walk alone, I'm walking with God.

 

"I will not leave you desolate I will come to you..."

                             John 14:18

 

"Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age."

                             Matthew 28:20

 

"When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth;.. (as you walk)

                             John 16:13

 

Many of us have been afraid to believe that such a life is possible for us. And some of us feel that we've pursued such a life in the past and failed. "How can human beings such as we with our bent to selfishness, with this cesspool of corruption which is in us all, presume to think that we can walk with God? Maybe Abraham did it and Enoch and Noah. And of course Jesus did it," we say. And when we say it we imply that Jesus could walk with God because he was the Son of God and that Abraham, Enoch and Noah could do it because they were made of different stuff or had a better environment. But in truth, Jesus walked with God as a man. He was as human as you and I. He was sustained by the same Spirit that sustains us ... he pioneered the way. And by his death he makes it possible for Enoch, Noah and Abraham and you and me to walk with God.

 

When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless..."

                                                                                               Genesis 17:1

 

In this revelation to Abraham God calls himself El Shaddai, the nourishing God, the breasted God, the father-mother God.

 

"I am your God, walk before me and be blameless."

 

It becomes possible for Abraham to walk with God as Abraham relies on El Shaddai. El Shaddai, the Almighty God, has given us his Son, nourishes us with the life of the Son by the blood of the cross and the power of the Spirit so that we can walk with him.

 

In Jesus, God gives me the power to walk in the consciousness of his seeing me even when I don't see him.

 

I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.                                 Psalm 32:8

 

That's what it means to walk with God...to know that he's there even when you see nothing, feel nothing, hear nothing. If I have to walk alone down a street crowded with hostile people I might become over­come with fear. I might be tempted to duck in somewhere and hide. But if I have a friend who knows the territory better than I and has no fear walking just a few feet away from me, then my fear is gone. I don't have to keep glancing around to make sure my friend is still there -- I know he's there. So I can keep my eyes ahead of me and keep plodding on.

 

In Jesus, God gives me the power to walk in his lowliness...which sees the lowest people on earth not as clients but as peers.

 

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

                                                                                          Matthew 11:29

 

If I'm going to walk with God I have to walk where he walks. God walks among the lowest of this world as their equal and their companion.

 

The one thing which keeps us from walking with God is our pride. We  want to be up with the celebrities. God is down with the rejects... as a reject. What gave that sinful woman the boldness to caress and kiss the feet of Jesus as he sat at table in the house of Simon the Pharisee? She knew that he was not only her Master but he was her brother. She could love him with pure love. There was nothing threatening about him. God bring us to the place where we can walk honestly in the lowest places on earth and not look like American tourists but be recognized as true friends.

 

In Jesus, God gives us the power to walk in love.

 

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacri­fice to God.

                                                                                   Ephesians 5:1-2

 

To walk with God is to walk in love. Books have been written about walking in love, but to walk in love is very simple: it is to walk as a giver instead of a taker.

 

Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in deed and in truth.

                                                                                     I John 3:18

 

The Spirit of God, the comforter by our side, will show us where this kindness is needed and he will help us.

 

He has showed you, 0 man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you But to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

                                                                                      Micah 6:8

 

El Shaddi is making it possible. He has come down among us. He is even now in our midst. He visits us in the bread and wine. He desires to walk with us. The issue is: will we walk with him or away from him?

 

God help us to leave this place today walking with him and keep walking with him in the paths of righteousness through the valley of the shadow of death that his goodness and mercy may follow us all the days of our lives and that we may dwell in his house forever!