Enoch, The Man who Pleased God
Part 4, Applications of Enoch’s Walk
2004 : Week 15  |  Printer Friendly Version  

As we continue to study Enoch in this series, we must ask what this means to us in this 21st century? What are the applications of Enoch’s walk for us, and how can we emulate the walk of someone who lived so long ago? We’ll explore the answer in the following two weeks, by studying five practical applications of Enoch’s walk.

1. Walk by Love, not by Duty

One of the great secrets of being able to truly walk with God is our motivation. It’s possible to have good intentions yet still miss the mark. For many of us, our motivation is duty. But there’s a problem with duty. While duty can be honorable, duty can run out of steam over the long haul. Duty’s fuel is unreliable and second-rate. Duty runs the risk of an empty tank. You see, duty looks at checklists. It spends its time focused on things and people, not on God. It preoccupies itself with saying such things as: “a Christian should act like this and a not like that, a Christian should go on visitation every week, or a Christian should never go to such-and-such a place.” And while all of this may be true, duty skirts around the central issue and misses the mark.

How much simpler if our walk was motivated by love for our Lord! The proper thinking and behavior would then pretty much automatically fall into line. And that’s why I believe that if I can get you to see just who God is and just how big He is, you will love Him more and fall into a more gentle, spiritually-natural walk with Him.

But how? How do we learn to love God enough to make love our motivation? I truly believe there are many people out there who honestly want to love God more, but they don’t know how. Perhaps some of you mothers may remember when you had your first child, how you might have wondered if you would love it or not. But once the baby was born and you began to feed the baby every day, when you invested time and effort in that baby, when your focus was on that baby, and then when that baby began to respond to you, your love for that baby grew more than you ever imagined possible. The same thing happens with God.

When you make the effort to go after the manna every day, when you make a commitment to walk with Him every day, when you tune yourself into Him throughout the day, you will discover that He responds to you. You will begin to have encounters with Him that refocus your perspective about Him. Perhaps your encounter will be a verse in the Bible that speaks directly to your need. Perhaps it will be a so-called coincidence that cannot possibly be a coincidence. Perhaps it will be even more dramatic: a burning bush experience. Perhaps it will be multiple encounters in a short period of time. As He responds, you see just how big He is, and your love grows.

Once you discover this love, you will find that you want to feast on the manna every day, and you want to make a commitment every day, and you want to tune yourself to him throughout the day. This new relationship gains momentum upon itself. It makes its own fuel. You become so filled that you cannot help but lift your voice in praise and song. You cannot help but speak to your neighbor about Him when given the opportunity. This kind of love is hard to silence; it begs for an outlet. How much different this is than fretting about fulfilling our duty to tell our neighbor about God! This is what it means to have a walk motivated by love.

2. Walk Powered by the Holy Spirit

Do you suppose that Enoch walked with a God that he could literally see? Do you think that God walked with Enoch the way God walked with Adam in the garden? Do you think that maybe God appeared the way He appeared to Abraham and to Moses and to others? You know, I think He did. I think Enoch had an edge. I think it is easier to develop a close relationship with someone you can literally see and hear: someone who is literally walking by your side.

Perhaps that thought discourages you. After all, we know that God is not going to literally walk beside us today. But folks, Enoch had no edge on us. For the day that we trusted Jesus Christ as our Savior, the Holy Spirit indwelled us. You see, God is walking even closer to us than He did with Enoch; for we have God Himself inside us.

What a wonderful gift the Holy Spirit is! Every day of this world He assists us in our walk with God. We need to learn to be increasingly cognizant of His leading. Apostle Paul said in Philippians 2:5, ‘Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus’, meaning we should walk in the same spirit as Christ.

As we read the Word of God, the Holy Spirit melds it with our mind and heart until we become more and more in line with Christ. He brings thoughts to our minds perhaps an idea about the right way to deal with a difficult circumstance. He may bring an idea to mind about being kind and tenderhearted to someone who needs assistance. He may prod us with a desire to pray for someone, or He may point out a unique opportunity to tell someone about Jesus. To ignore this prodding is to quench and grieve the Holy Spirit. It is to lose opportunities that might have led to some far greater area of service for God. When we ignore the Holy Spirit in our walk with God, we do no less damage than if we had cut off our own foot.

We’ll continue to explore the practical applications of Enoch’s walk next week.

God’s faith and grace is real. Let us walk by faith as Enoch did.

Pastor Ralph E. Wingate, Jr.



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