ICS Daily Devotions
Walking with God
Hebrews 11:5 (NKJV). By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, “and was not found, because God had taken him”; for before he was taken, he had this testimony that he pleased God.
Enoch and Elijah were only two people in the Bible who did not experience death but were taken away by God. It is not how we start off in life but how we end in life that matters, and Enoch certainly ended his life well.
Enoch was the seventh from Adam. Just like Christian parents who have the responsibilities to teach and show their children how to walk with God, Adam and Eve’s oral tradition was passed down the generations. Enoch must have heard from Adam and Eve what it was like before they fell from their sins, the consequences of sin, and the goodness of God. He must have been fascinated by how Adam and Eve were able to walk with God, and desired to have this kind of relationship with Him too.
Because the law was not given until the time of Moses, Enoch lived in the age of oral tradition as there were no written records yet. He would have been taught the ways of God, how to worship and to serve Him. However, how we respond to God, His statues and His ways is dependent on the individual, so it was Enoch himself who chose to walk with God, fixed his eyes on Him and ensured that he abided by God’s requirement.
Genesis 5:21-24 (NKJV) Enoch lived sixty-five years, and begot Methuselah. After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and had sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.
It had been a lifestyle of faith for Enoch that lasted 300 years. He is the personification of what the walk of faith looks like. He had to walk by faith because nobody has seen God, since God cannot be seen by our naked eyes. He had to have faith in what he heard about God. Eventually, he was taken away while walking with God on a normal day. He probably had such a good walk with God that God decided to bring him back for good!
Our walk of faith is not just a short period when we go through a tribulation in life. Instead, we walk with God in good and bad times because we are convinced that He is good. It is a lifelong walk with God until we are taken back to our heavenly home.
Sermon Series: What Pleases God (Part 3) (Righteousness: Religion or Reality?)
