Walking with God

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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. Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more because God took him away. GENESIS 5:24

The test of a person's religious life and character is not what they do in the exceptional moments of life, but what they do in the ordinary times when there is nothing tremendous or exciting on. The worth of a person is revealed in their attitude to ordinary things when they are not before the spotlights. (Cf. John 1:36.) It is a painful business to get through into the stride of God, it means getting your “second wind” spiritually. In learning to walk with God there is always the difficulty of getting into His stride; but when we have got into it, the only characteristic that manifests itself is the life of God. The individual man is lost sight of in his personal union with God, and the stride and the power of God alone are manifested.

It is difficult to get into stride with God because when we start walking with Him we find He has outstripped us before we have taken three steps. He has different ways of doing things, and we have to be trained and disciplined in His ways. It was said of Jesus, “He shall not fail nor be discouraged,” because He never worked from His own individual standpoint but always from the standpoint of His Father, and we have to learn to do the same. Spiritual truth is learned by the atmosphere, not by intellectual reasoning. God’s Spirit alters the atmosphere of our way of looking at things, and things begin to be possible which never were possible before. Getting into the stride of God means nothing less than union with Himself. It takes a long time to get there, but keep at it. Don’t give in because the pain is bad just now, get on with it, and before long you will find you have a new vision and a new purpose.


WHO WAS ENOCH?
Son of Jared and father of Methuselah (Gn. 5:18, 21). Enoch was a man of outstanding sanctity who enjoyed close fellowship with God (Gn. 5:22, 24: for the expression ‘walked with God’, Gn. 6:9; Mi. 6:8; Mal. 2:6). Like Elijah (2 Ki. 2:11), he was received into the presence of God without dying (Gn. 5:24).
It is probable that the language of Pss. 49:15; 73:24 reflects the story of Enoch. In that case, the example of Enoch’s assumption played a part in the origin of Jewish hope for a life with God beyond death.

In the NT, Heb. 11:5f. attributes Enoch’s assumption to his faith; the expression ‘pleased God’ is the LXX translation of ‘walked with God’ (Gn. 5:24).





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