What Does It Mean To Walk With God in 2021
As we enter 2021 you may be asking yourself What does it mean to walk with God in 2021?
To walk with God simply means realizing you’re a sinner and thanking Him for saving you. It’s not dependent upon your working, witnessing, praying, studying, tithing, or worshiping. It’s just saying, “Lord, I’m a sinner. Thank You for saving me.”
When we hear the term ‘walk with God’ one of the first names in Scripture is Enoch. The Bible does not mention him much but it did say that Enoch was a man who walked with God.
God Declares That Man Should Walk With Him
Enoch is one of the truly mysterious figures in Scriptural history
However I believe there is a lot we can learn from this man.
He was one of those long-lived ante-diluvians. That is, he lived before the Deluge (Noah’s great flood) and was early in the line of primal fathers who lived to incredible ages. Genesis 5:21–24 devotes only fifty-one words (in English) to describing Enoch:
21 When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. 22 After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. 23 Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. 24 Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
At age sixty-five, Enoch began walking with God. For three hundred years, he walked so closely with the Lord that it is as if one day, the Lord looked at him and said, “Enoch, we’re closer to My house than yours, so why don’t you just come on up and stay with Me?”
Enoch never died. He was just raptured, translated, and snatched up into heaven, where he is living to this day.
You see, walking with God has benefits not only in this life but in heaven—where all things will be right, where every tear will be dried, where every question will be answered, where every problem will be solved.
One thing that stands out is faithfully (which shows consistency in his walk) Another thing that the Bible says about Enoch is that he was a prophet. Not many people know this about him.
Enoch served as a prophet for over three centuries, preaching the unwelcome message of coming judgment. Jude 14, 15 records this, saying
14 Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones 15 to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”
Enoch was no wilting flower! His prophetic bloom remained fresh and full for 300 years!
Now it seemed that the way Enoch walked with God was extremely pleasing in the eyes of God that he never died.
Hebrews 11:5 5 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.” For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.
Notice that it says that Enoch lived in a way that was pleasing in God’s eyes. Basically Enoch pleased God because of his character that he had. Today a lot of people are focused on Charisma but Charisma without Character is Disaster.
God Desires Man Would Walk With Him
Genesis 3:8
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
The first people who ever walked with God was not Enoch but Adam.
That is, our walking with God is not only for our benefit but for His enjoyment. We see this in Genesis 3, a story we know well.
It seems when you read this that God will come down to the Garden and he and Adam would regularly walk together. In this scene we see that Adam is hiding because he is no longer in agreement with God.
When we fall out with people we tend to hide from them instead of walking with them. Think of any relationship where two people were in love and they would walk together everywhere.
This happens when they are in mutual agreement but when they ‘break up’ there is no more walking together.They would avoid each other. God’s desire is that man would walk with him but men chose to walk without him.
They chose to walk in Carnality. When you read Amos, it says that God still desires that we would walk with him.
Amos 3:3 3 Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?
How Did Enoch Walk With God?
Enoch’s Walk
Walking with God and pleasing God means basically the same thing.
Walking with another person suggests a mutual agreement of soul, as the prophet Amos understood when he asked, “Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?” (Amos 3:3).
It is impossible to walk together unless there are several mutual agreements. To begin with, you must agree on the destination. Husbands and wives know that the paths to Bloomingdale’s and Eddie Bauer are not the same! You cannot walk together and go to separate destinations. Enoch was heading in God’s direction.
Of course, it is quite possible to be headed to the same destination but by separate paths. But again, two cannot walk together unless they have the same destination and follow the same path. This Enoch did with God!
A lot of people today don’t want to go in God’s Direction. They want to go in their direction. It’s not about God’s will but their will for their life. Sometimes they go where he leads and sometimes they veer off. Enoch consistently walked in God’s Direction.
Enoch’s Faith
The other side of this coin, the primary side that so pleased God that he decided to take Enoch to Heaven, was Enoch’s faith—“By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away” (11:5a).
Though the Old Testament does not say Enoch had faith, the inspired author of Hebrews says that was his primary characteristic.
Faith and a righteous walk with God are inseparably joined in the author’s mind—just as he had observed about Abel in the previous verse: “By faith he was commended as a righteous man” (v. 4). The preacher is saying that faith precedes and produces the walk with God that so pleases him.
Hebrews 11:6
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
As a Christian we need to be people of faith. We need to believe that God exists and also that he rewards those who seek him.
Enoch lived in dark, hostile days that were uncongenial to his faith. Life was so inhospitable that finally, in the time of Noah:
Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.” (Genesis 6:11–13)
However, Enoch resisted the sinful gravity of his culture and walked with God for over 300 years!
We also live in such sinful times. Would we be like Enoch and resist the sinful gravity of our culture? It takes faith in God to do this.
God Determined Man Would Walk With Him
John 1:14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
I said earlier than in order to walk with God we must be in agreement with him. Think about it for a second. You will not walk with people who you are not in agreement with or you are not in a right relationship with.We walk with those we consider our friends.
God declared that man should walk with Him and desired that man would walk with Him. But man didn’t. He failed in Eden and failed in the days of Amos. Did God wash His hands and say, “Forget it”? No. Even though man was polluted by sin, God determined that man could walk with Him by becoming a Man Himself.
God sent His Son to be slain for our sin, to take away the disharmony, the disagreement, the barrier between us and God.
As a believer in Christ you have placed your faith in Jesus and trusted in him and because of this you are in right standing with the Father.
The Lamb of God took away every sin I have ever committed in my entire life. On the Cross, He paid for every carnal thought, sinful act, and stubborn mistake. That’s why John exclaimed, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
We can walk with our Father once again. We can have harmony and unity with God because Jesus paid the price for our sin. The barrier is gone.
Our walks become complicated. We think we have to learn ten verses a day, read ten chapters in the Bible a week, and witness to ten people at work in order to maintain our walk with the Lord. We develop philosophies and theologies, obligations and regulations—and then wonder where the joy of our walk with the Lord went.
Our walk is not determined by my ability to avoid sin but by him who conquered sin.
The problem with many believers is that, although we understand we’re saved by grace and not works, after we’re saved, we start working. We start complicating things and wonder where the joy went.
We worship and witness, pray and praise, sacrifice and serve not to earn God’s favor but because He has already shown such favor to us. The Christian life is a delight because it’s so simple. We can walk in agreement with God solely because of the work of the Lamb. It’s finished. It’s complete. Enjoy your salvation—and be free.
If you have placed your faith and your trust in Jesus you have done the main thing that God wants you to do. Doing a lot of things is not going to take you to heaven. Trusting in Jesus would take you to heaven. My admoniton to you in 2021 is that you would continue to walk with God in 2021. Continue to maintain your relationship with him for the years to come. Do not walk away from so great a Salvation.
Hebrews 2:1-3 1 We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. 2 For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, 3 how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him.
What about you? What is your plan to walk with God in 2021. Let me know in the comments.
