No man has ever overcome death – the most powerful thing on this earth (besides God Himself) is death. But in Genesis we see that Enoch walked with God by faith, and he escaped death – he was raptured to God, never seeing death (see Gen. 5:22-24). Enoch obtained the testimony that he was well-pleasing to God, and after living 365 years, he was not because God took him.
In order for us to overcome any death in our environment and even physical death, for us to be prepared for the Lord to rapture us, we need to walk with God as Enoch did. This means that we need to take God as our center and everything, doing things according to God and with God, being always under His leading and receiving His revelation.
To walk with God means to walk by faith, which means we daily live in the realization that we are not and God is. When we were regenerated, God’s life came into us, and now we need to live by this life – firstly denying ourselves, acknowledging that we are nothing but God is everything, and secondly letting Christ live in us!
Paul’s testimony needs to be ours also, No longer I, but Christ (Gal. 2:20). When we as believers in Christ walk by the spirit in oneness with the Lord, we overcome death and we co-walk with the Lord, co-work with Him, and co-live with Him, letting Him live in us.
May the Lord impress us with a vision of how Enoch walked with God and was not because God took him – and how this applies to our daily Christian life today!
Enoch Walked with God – He was Pleasing to God!
In the Bible we see the record of the life of many people, and only a few of them did not see death. Enoch was one of them – after he begot Methuselah, he lived another three hundred years and he walked with God. He escaped death and obtained the testimony that he was well-pleasing to God by walking with God for 300 years! It must have been that long before the end of the 300 years death ceased to operate in him, because he was walking with God!
When we walk with God, we escape death in any of its forms – the death within our members, the death in our environment, the spiritual death, the psychological death, and even the physical death.
What does it mean to walk with God? It is not God walking with us (as the Lord Jesus walked with His two disciples down to Emmaus after His resurrection, Luke 24:15-17) but it is us walking with God.
When the Lord walks with us, it is always downward – He comes alongside, walking with us, talking to us, speaking to us, shepherding us, and eventually opening our eyes to see Him; the result is always that He would turn us around and we may go up and walk with Him! When we walk with the Lord, it is always upward.
In order for us to be prepared to be raptured, to escape death, and to obtain the testimony of being well-pleasing to God, we need to be matured in life by walking with God every day! This means that we don’t only take God’s way of worshiping Him (as we see with Abel), we don’t only call on the name of the Lord (as seen in Enosh), but we walk with God, taking Him as our center and everything!
What Does it Mean to Walk with God?
Many Christians think they know what it means to walk with God, and even I thought I knew. How much we need to really come to the Lord in His word in a fresh way, so that He may really speak something from what’s on His heart concerning walking with God!
To walk with God means that we don’t run ahead of Him or stay behind Him – we don’t override God. It means that we are not presumptuous to do things according to what we think God wants us to do.
Walking with God limits us – we don’t do things according to our concept and desire and we don’t do things that other people do according to the current of the age. To walk with God really means that we don’t do anything without God (see Psa. 19:12-13; Josh. 9:14b).
Also, to walk with God means that we take God as our center and our everything, and in our daily life we live and do all things according to God and in God. To walk with someone is to be limited by his speed, his step, and his walk. When we walk with God, we do things according to His revelation and leading, and we do everything with Him and in oneness with Him (see Rom. 8:4, 13-14; Gal. 2:2a).
We are as in a three-legged walk with the Lord, where we walk with Him, allowing Him in us to limit us, speak to us, direct us, and lead us.
Many times though, we have to admit, God walks with us, and we limit Him, imprison Him, hinder Him, and even run away from Him. But He walks with us, speaks to us, bothers us from within, and gently brings us back to His way that we may walk with Him and be one with Him. How we love Him!
To Walk with God is to Walk by Faith
In the New Testament we see that walking with God is to walk by faith (2 Cor. 5:7; Heb. 11:5-6, 1-2; 2 Cor. 4:13, 18). Without faith, the Bible tells us, it is impossible for us to be well pleasing to God (Heb. 11:6).
To believe in God or to walk by faith doesn’t merely mean that we believe that God exists, and He’s sovereign over all things in our life….to believe that God is means that He is everything to us and that we are nothing (see John 8:58; Eccl. 1:2). God is, and we are not. We may be here today, but we are gone tomorrow.
Nothing that we see today on earth is – only God is. We are weak, frail, and mortal – we are NOT! In our life and daily walk, we need to realize that God is the only One, the unique One, in everything, and we are nothing in everything! And we can do this because Christ constrains us with His love in our organic union with Him (2 Cor. 5:14-15).
As we call on the name of the Lord to enjoy all His riches and His strengthening, we are supplied with grace to deny ourselves and let Christ live in us! The righteous requirements of God are fulfilled in us when we walk according to the spirit (and not according to the lusts of the flesh).
In our organic and romantic relationship with the Lord, we put to death by the spirit the practices of the body so that we may live to Christ and live Christ (Rom. 8:13-14). This means that we stop ourselves from doing anything because we realize we are nothing.
Like Paul, we have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer us who live – but Christ lives in us (Gal. 2:20). And the life we now live in the flesh, we live in faith, in the organic union with Christ, the One who loved us and gave Himself up for us.
When we go to school, it is not us who live but Christ who lives in us. When we are at work and are so busy with things, it is Christ who lives in us. When we go shopping, it is not our desire for the products on sale that is manifested, but Christ lives in us.
The Lord Jesus told us in Luke 9:23, If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself. The Christian life is a life by faith – we deny ourselves, exercise our spirit, touch the Lord, believe that He is, and let Him live in us. To walk by faith really means, No longer I who live but it is Christ who lives in me.
As we practice to exercise our spirit and be one with the Lord in our spirit (1 Cor. 6:17), we enjoy the constraining love of Christ and are supplied to walk together with Him and to be a co-worker with Him, co-walking with Him and co-living with Him. In every detail of our daily life, we can exercise our spirit of faith, deny our self, and live in oneness with the Lord so that we may walk with God for His satisfaction.
Lord Jesus, we love You as the Spirit living in our spirit. Constrain us more with Your love that we would no longer live to ourselves but to You. Lord, we want to walk with You in all the details of our daily life. We admit that we are nothing and we can do nothing. Lord Jesus, You are. You are the unique One; You are everything. You are our center and our all. We want to do all things in You and with You. Lord, strengthen our organic union with You! We want to practice being one spirit with You, Lord, that we may put to death by the spirit the practices of the body and live Christ!
References and Further Reading
- Inspiration (besides the Word of God and my Christian experience): bro. Dick Taylor’s speaking in this message and portions from, Crystallization-study of the Epistle to the Romans (by Witness Lee, msg. 7), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on the Crystallization Study of Genesis (1), week / msg 10, Abel, Enosh, and Enoch.
- Hymns on this topic:
# If God leads you to walk / A way that you know, / It will not benefit you as much as / If He would lead you to take the way / That you do not know. / This forces you to have / Hundreds and thousands of / Conversations with Him, / Resulting in a journey that is an / Everlasting memorial / Between you and Him. [lyrics inspired from a sharing by Watchman Nee]
# And now I’m walking by the Spirit / Step by step, day by day, / O Lord, I love You. / You’re the precious One to me. / As I do this and that / Lord, remind me where You’re at; / You’re in my spirit, / Dispensing grace to me.
# ’Tis by this inner life-anointing / I in fellowship may move; / In God, the light of truth, I’m walking, / And the love of grace I prove.
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