Walking with God Joy awaits all those that move in Him

KWENDA KWENDA writes
@SunZambian
“Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him,” Genesis 5:24.
ENOCH was taken by God because he walked with God. This is a simple yet fully packed statement. It captured my attention and got me thinking. You would be expecting it to say Enoch was taken because he was blaspheming God. This is what you see in most passages of Scripture. People’s lives were cut short because they did evil. Talk of Sodom and Gomorrah. Talk of Eli’s sons and people like Pharaoh. However, it was different with Enoch.
Even though Enoch didn’t die, this tells us that death is nothing to fear for a Christian. We fear death because this world seems to be so sweet. Life is so sweet. It is so nice. So to think of not existing in this world and to leave the food, the fashion, the laughing and everyone else is something we cannot imagine. Who will look after my children? Who will look after my husband or wife? These are questions we ask. We look at things from a human point of view. God looks at eternity and heaven as the best place for his children. The best place we can be is in heaven.
God loved Enoch and he loved the friendship and fellowship he had with Enoch and so he took him to be with him. I am not suggesting that long life is bad but that it is better to be in God’s presence than to be filled with worldly activities. Can you imagine being in God’s presence? No hunger. No crying. No fighting and quarreling. No evil. Only praising God and experiencing trueness of joy.
No wonder Paul in Philippians 1:23 said, “… My desire is to depart and be with Christ for that is far better.” Being in God’s presence is not just limited to being in heaven. We can be on earth and still have a foretaste of heaven. To do this we need to walk with God. By walking with God I mean having close fellowship with him on a daily basis. The challenge for you and me is to know how to walk with God. How do we do this? How do we walk with God? Well let me suggest three ways of doing so.
Know Jesus: Knowing Jesus should not just end at an intellectual level. Every man must desire to know Jesus in a real way. You and I must long to have a relationship with Christ. We must long to have a deep and real relationship with Christ. Jesus is the mediator between God and man. If we must come to the Father it must be through Christ.
Know that without Christ you and I are spiritually empty. We are spiritually cut off from the Father. When I say knowing Christ, I am not only referring to knowing him in a saving way but knowing him in a sanctifying way.
The apostle John was the disciple who was closest to Jesus and maybe that is why he wrote about these truths in such a manner. In John 17:3 he says, “And this is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” In another passages he says, “That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” 1 John 1:3. We would be thinking that it was only the apostle John who saw the need of knowing Jesus at a personal level.
Look at the words of the apostle Paul. Paul craved for a deeper and closer walk with Christ which would eventually see his life being transformed. He said, “That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his suffering, becoming like him in his death” Philipians 3:10. Walking with God requires us to know Jesus. The more we know Christ, the sweeter our fellowship will be and the more we will sense the presence of God in our lives.
Read the Scriptures and pray: Reading the Bible and everyday prayer is another way of walking with God. Since we have a relationship or I’ll assume that we do, we must interact with God. This happens through reading and meditation of Scripture and consistent prayer. So I would like us to picture walking with God as Enoch did by seeing ourselves on a journey with Christ. We are on the pilgrim with Christ. This pilgrim is not just seating in a bus or an airplane. It is a Journey of a lifetime. A journey of life. We are traveling with Christ in our marriages, in the family, at work, at Church, in raising children and everywhere else.
Christ is there to give us the counsel we need for everything we are going to experience as we are headed towards our destination. Can you imagine if we do not talk to him and he does not talk to us as we journey along? In praying we talk to him and in reading Scripture he talks to us. Do you know what that is called? It is called fellowship. This is what happens between people who know each other and have a close relationship. They Fellowship. They laugh together. They cry together and interact at a deep level. This is how we walk with God. This is how we can experience the presence of God. We do not have to wait for heaven. We can have a foretaste of heaven when these things are applied. Oh that God may help us to desire to walk with him.
Avail Yourself for Church Meetings: God uses the means of grace to help us draw closer to him. In faithfully attending Church meetings you have the opportunity to walk with God as you fellowship with other saints. They may be God’s mouthpiece to your life and life’s situations. The Bible studies, preaching and prayers can even strengthen your walk with God. There are times when the singing during church gathering is so glorious that you almost feel like heaven has come down. All that is part of walking with God. Enoch must have really enjoyed his fellowship with God and God must have enjoyed it too. No wonder he took him. Make Church meetings a priority. They will strengthen your walk with God.
There are perhaps many other things which you could do. I am also not suggesting that if you do these things then you will not live long or that God may take you sooner than expected. The point is that you will have a very satisfying spiritual life. You will know the presence of God is a much bigger way.
Enoch was taken by God to be in the presence of God. He was taken to be in the presence of God because he walked with God. So if we are going to sense the presence of God and have a fulfilling friendship with God then we must learn the art of walking with him. Do you know what the Bible says about Noah? In the midst of an evil world Noah found grace in God’s sight and was spared of his life together with this family. Immediately after that the Bible says, “…Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God” Genesis 6:9. Noah’s life was not righteousness and success in building the ark was not because he was intelligent. It was because he walked with God. He spent time with God.
Dear Christian, walk with God. Walk with him in your devotions. Let him speak to you as you read his word. Walk with him as you work. Walk with him in your marriage. Walk with him at all times. Walk with him dear one.
Walk with God. Joy awaits all those who walk with him.