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“Walking with God”
Categories: Christian lifeA startling yet lovely picture of fellowship in the Garden of Eden is when we read, “And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen. 3.8). It’s said matter-of-factly, like this was normal for Adam and Eve to walk with God in the garden He had given them. That is an astounding thought to me. This was God’s plan—to have this kind of fellowship with His creatures.
When Adam and Eve broke the covenant and ate the fruit, they broke fellowship with their Creator, affecting themselves but also all the rest of us, since Adam is the head of the human race. Tragically, no one else got to walk with God in the garden.
However, others did walk with God.
The first mentioned was Enoch: “And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him” (Gen. 5.22-24). Somehow, God disappeared Enoch from the earth; Enoch did not die the way the rest of us do, and it was because of his close relationship with God. He knew God and walked with God in an intimate way that God loved.
The second mentioned was Noah: “These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God” (Gen. 6.9). In the middle of an out-of-control world in which “was corrupt in God’s sight, and was filled with violence” (Gen. 6.11), Noah stood out in his righteousness before the Lord. He’s another who walked intimately with God, and God saved him and his family in a special way, blessing him and the rest of mankind.
God found Abram many years later and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be blameless, that I may make My covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly” (Gen. 17.1). If you want to be in relationship with God, He calls you to walk with Him.
In the wilderness, God gave Israel manna to eat, saying, “that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not” (Exod. 16.4).
Walking with God, walking before God, walking in God’s law—all of these mean living with Him and for Him. Your walk is your way of life. It is how you go about your daily business.
Dear Christian, do you remember, “you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked” (Eph. 2.1–2)? You were once disobedient to your Creator. Your way of life was characterized by disobedience. You used to walk “as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity” (Eph. 4.17–19). That’s not a pretty picture!
But God called you out of that dead walk and recreated you in Jesus Christ. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2.10). Paul urges Christians now “to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4.1–3). He calls us to “walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” (Eph. 5.1), to “walk as children of light” (Eph. 5.8), and to “look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5.15).
How are you walking? Are you in step with the Creator? Do you have an intimate fellowship with Him through Jesus Christ? This is the manner of life to which you have been called!
