Enoch: The power of walking with God

Enoch is mentioned only very briefly in the Bible. We first hear about him in Genesis 5:21-24: “… 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.”

And then in Hebrews 11:5 he is mentioned again amongst the heroes of faith, and what is said about him is super significant: “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’s testimony

So little is mentioned about this man of faith, just a few verses, but because of the testimony Enoch had, almost every believer knows his name. He “walked with God” and “he pleased God.” Could there be a better testimony? Could there be a higher mission in life? Could there be anything else of more importance in this life?

We also know, from the account in Genesis 5, that Enoch lived in the days shortly before Noah. It’s written about that time that: “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.” Genesis 6:5-6.

Can you imagine how much it meant to God, that when He looked at the earth and His creation, and saw how far it had fallen, how everything was contaminated with evil, He still saw one man who walked with Him; whose intention was to please Him? This was the same testimony that Enoch’s great-grandson Noah had.

What an amazing example we have in Enoch. He lived a life of faith. It was a way of life for him; he walked with God. He allowed God to direct his paths, that’s how he was pleasing to God. And because of his faith God took Enoch to be with Him.

We can walk with God

In these days God also looks down at the earth and sees a world full of egotistical “lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God,” as described in 2 Timothy 3:1-5. How much do you think it delights His heart when He sees those who are faithful to Him, those who walk with Him? Those who “become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world?” Philippians 2:15. In the middle of this evil world we can have the testimony that we walk with God and that we please God.

We do this by giving up our own lusts and desires, driven by love to serve God in obedience to His will. We can be those people who are described in Colossians 3 who seek the things which are above, and reject everything that comes from this world.

We can strive to have the same testimony that Enoch had. Not for the sake of our own ego, that we should be known for something, but so that we can honor God with our lives. So that everyone who knows us knows this about us: that we walk with God and live to please Him.

Walking with God: A how-to

How do we walk with God? What is walking with God in a day-to-day life? It means He is our constant companion. We get to know Him by immersing ourselves in His Word. He is the One we turn to for all instruction, comfort, and strength. “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; My God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” Psalm 18:2. We seek and do His will. “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Luke 11:2. We are obedient to all that He commands. We don’t just do the obvious, just scraping past. We dig deeper to find out how we can best serve Him, how we can please Him better.

Then God too, whether at the end of our time on earth or at the time of the rapture, will take us to be with Him. If we are faithful in walking with God all of our days, then one day we will walk right into eternity, to be with Him forever.