What does it mean to walk with God?
That you should walk with God in uprightness, is commended to you in the cloud of examples, of Enoch, Noah, Job, David, Zacharias and Elizabeth; with many others, renowned in scripture; and is commanded to Abraham, and, in him, to all the faithful,—“I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.”
To live by faith, (which is, to frame your heart and life according to the will of God revealed in his word,) and to walk with God, are all one. Enoch was said to have walked with God;—what was this else, but to believe and rest on God, whereby he pleased him. For according to what we live, according to that we are said to walk. The moral actions of man’s life are fitly resembled by the metaphor of walking, which is a moving from one place to another.
No man, while he lives here, is at home in the place where he shall be. There are two contrary homes, to which every man is always going—either to heaven, or to hell. Every action of man is one pace or step whereby he goeth to the one place or the other.
The holiness or wickedness of the action is the several way to the place of happiness, or place of torment. So that God’s own children, while they live in this world as pilgrims and strangers, are but in the way, not in the country which they seek, which is heavenly.
This life of faith and holiness, what is it, but a going out of a man’s self, and a continual returning to God, by Christ Jesus, from the way of sin and death, and a constant perseverance in all those acts of obedience, which God hath ordained to be the way for all his children to walk in, unto eternal life.
A godly life is said to be a walking with God in respect of four things that concur thereunto.
1. Whereas by sin we naturally are departed from God, and gone away from his ways which he hath appointed for us, we, by the new and living way of Christ’s death and resurrection, and by the new and living work of Christ’s Spirit, are brought near to God; and are set in the ways of God, by repentance from dead works, and by faith towards God in Christ Jesus; which are the first principles of true religion, and the first steps to this great duty of walking with God. Now, to believe and to continue in the faith, is, to walk in Christ; therefore to walk with God.
2. The revealed will of God is called God’s way, because in it God doth as it were display the secrets of his holy Majesty, to show his people their way to him, and so bring them nigh unto himself; as the inspired Psalmist speaks: “Righteousness shall go before him, and shall set us in the way of his steps.” Now this way of righteousness, revealed in the sacred scriptures, is the rule of a godly life: he who walketh according to God’s law, is said to walk before God, (compare 1 Kings 8:25. with 2 Chron. 6:16.) So that he who walketh according to God’s will in the various changes and conditions of life, keeping himself to this rule, walketh with God.
3. He that liveth a godly life, walketh after the Spirit, not after the flesh. He is “led by the Spirit of God,” having him for his guide; wherefore in this respect also he is said to walk with God.
4. He that walketh with God, sees, by the eye of faith, God present with him in all his actions; seriously thinking of him upon all occasions, remembering him in his ways, setting the Lord always before him, as David did; seeing him that is invisible, as Moses did; doing all things, as St. Paul did, as of God, in the sight of God. Now he who so walketh that he always observeth God’s presence, and keepeth him still in his view in the course of his life, not only with a general and habitual, but, as much as he can, with an actual intention to please and glorify God, this man may be said to walk with God.
Thus you may know when you walk with God:
This life of faith and holiness, what is it, but a going out of a man’s self, and a continual returning to God, by Christ Jesus, from the way of sin and death, and a constant perseverance in all those acts of obedience, which God hath ordained to be the way for all his children to walk in, unto eternal life.
A godly life is said to be a walking with God in respect of four things that concur thereunto.
1. Whereas by sin we naturally are departed from God, and gone away from his ways which he hath appointed for us, we, by the new and living way of Christ’s death and resurrection, and by the new and living work of Christ’s Spirit, are brought near to God; and are set in the ways of God, by repentance from dead works, and by faith towards God in Christ Jesus; which are the first principles of true religion, and the first steps to this great duty of walking with God. Now, to believe and to continue in the faith, is, to walk in Christ; therefore to walk with God.
2. The revealed will of God is called God’s way, because in it God doth as it were display the secrets of his holy Majesty, to show his people their way to him, and so bring them nigh unto himself; as the inspired Psalmist speaks: “Righteousness shall go before him, and shall set us in the way of his steps.” Now this way of righteousness, revealed in the sacred scriptures, is the rule of a godly life: he who walketh according to God’s law, is said to walk before God, (compare 1 Kings 8:25. with 2 Chron. 6:16.) So that he who walketh according to God’s will in the various changes and conditions of life, keeping himself to this rule, walketh with God.
3. He that liveth a godly life, walketh after the Spirit, not after the flesh. He is “led by the Spirit of God,” having him for his guide; wherefore in this respect also he is said to walk with God.
4. He that walketh with God, sees, by the eye of faith, God present with him in all his actions; seriously thinking of him upon all occasions, remembering him in his ways, setting the Lord always before him, as David did; seeing him that is invisible, as Moses did; doing all things, as St. Paul did, as of God, in the sight of God. Now he who so walketh that he always observeth God’s presence, and keepeth him still in his view in the course of his life, not only with a general and habitual, but, as much as he can, with an actual intention to please and glorify God, this man may be said to walk with God.
Thus you may know when you walk with God:
(1.) When you daily go on to repent of sins past, believe in Jesus Christ for pardon, and believe his word for direction. (2.) When you walk not according to the will of man, but of God. (3.) When you walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (4.) When you set God before you, and walk as in his sight, then you walk with, before, after, and according to God: for all these are understood in one sense.
Scudder, H. (1826). The Christian’s Daily Walk (pp. 50–53). Glasgow: William Whyte & Co.
