Stockton Baptist Church
Body
WALKING WITH GOD. Parents are their kids best cheerleaders, especially as they get close to getting the hang of balance and standing. And cell phones are kept close at hand in joyful anticipation of catching those first steps. Of course, after those first steps, kids are off to the races. I can't help but imagine that it's the same with God. He no doubt joyfully awaits people coming to genuine faith in His Son and then taking those first steps of faith as they begin their lifelong walk in the truth of the Gospel. The Bible uses the concept of people 'walking' with God several times. We can't comprehend the long lives people lived in the past, but 'Enoch walked with God three hundred years' (Gen. 5:22). The point is that Enoch had a vibrant, genuine, trusting relationship (walk) with his Creator for 300 years and then 'God took Him' (Gen. 5:24). Enoch never died for God took him bodily to heaven. The next person who walked with God was Noah—'Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God' (Gen. 6:9). It's not that Noah was without sin for none of us are. Rather, the idea is that he was a man who had genuine faith in his Creator which motivated him to live in loving obedience to and fearful reverence for Him. We also see God telling King Solomon, 'Now if you walk before Me as your father David walked, in integrity of heart and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and My judgments, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever' (1 Kings 9:4-5). In contrast, God says of others that they 'have not walked in My ways to do what is right in My eyes' (1 Kings 11:33) or that they 'walked in all the sins (or ways) of (their) father' (e.g. 1 Kings 15:3). It's been said, 'There are two choices on the shelf, pleasing God or pleasing self.' By God's grace, we, too, can walk a life that's pleasing to God!
