Is Your Church Still Walking With God? Pt 2
If you’ve been around the church very long, you’ve heard, and I have often used, the phrase having a personal relationship with Jesus. This is how we describe our interaction with Jesus. We can find some great truths in that phrase. We know that we have more than a casual acquaintanceship with Jesus, that’s it’s a relationship. Like any relationship, it can be deep or shallow. And it always needs to be nurtured. We also find that the relationship is personal. We don’t enter it because of our association with a group or because we have a membership card. We come into a relationship because something has happened to us individually, as persons.
However, here’s the interesting thing: when the Bible describes how we interact with Jesus, we don’t find the term relationship anywhere on its pages. The Bible never talks about a “personal relationship with Christ.” Instead, when the Bible talks about what we have with Jesus, we find a single word: walk.
He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)
Several people are described as “walking with God” in the Bible, beginning with Enoch in Genesis 5:24: And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.
Noah is described as a just man, perfect in his generation. Noah walked with God (Genesis 6:9). Walking with God is not an activity reserved for a select few. God desires all His children to walk with Him. Or consider the book of Ephesians, where Paul uses the word walk six times to describe how Christ-followers are supposed to live, to have a relationship with Jesus: “Walk worthy. Walk in love. Walk in good works.” God wants us to walk, to live, to move forward in our lives. In Exodus 16:4 we read, Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not.”
God has a perfect desire that His people who are called by His name should walk with Him. Whether it is God speaking to the Israelites in the Old Testament or He is speaking to His church today, the intention is the same. When we walk in these parameters, then it is well with our being. Deuteronomy 5:33 describes this promise that God gave: “You shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you shall possess.”
What happens when we walk with someone? Imagine that you and a close friend are enjoying an evening walk down the road. What is happening is that you are near each other. There is blessedness about walking with someone you care for deeply. A special bond occurs as you walk with another. You talk, laugh, listen, and share your heart. It is as though you can let your guard down and be free in the conversation or even the beauty of not even being in conversation—but together in the silence. Your attention is focused on this person to the exclusion of almost everything else around you. For just a little while you can reflect on the day and enjoy your presence. You notice the beauty around you or an occasional distraction, but only to point it out to your companion. You share it together. You are in harmony, and you both enjoy peaceful camaraderie. The one you are walking with is the destination and not the place you are going.
The Hebrew word for walk used in Genesis 5, referring to Enoch, indicates much more than just a journey. It means “Human locomotion without any indication of destination.” The picture in Hebrew is of a person moving forward, one step at a time, but is consumed with the journey itself; the joy is in the walking and not where the person is going.
Walking with God is like that. When we enter into an intimate heart relationship with God through faith in His Son (Hebrews 10:22), He becomes our heart’s greatest desire.
Knowing Him, hearing His voice, sharing our hearts with Him, and seeking to please Him become our all-consuming focus. He becomes everything to us. Meeting with Him is not an activity reserved for Sunday morning. We live every day to fellowship with Him. A. W. Tozer states that the goal of every Christian should be to “live in a state of unbroken worship.” This is possible only when we walk with God. No matter where He leads us, regardless of the road, the only thing that matters is that we are with Him.
Just as walking with a close friend requires saying “no” to many other things, so walking with God requires letting go of anything that would be a distraction. Pastor Elaine Briefman, a licensed marriage and family counselor says, “You can say no when you have a stronger yes!” When God is our yes, then all else pales in comparison. If you were on a walk with a friend but you brought a kazoo and played it the whole time, the walk would not be satisfying for either of you. Many people attempt to walk with God, but they bring along kazoo-like habits: sins, worldly entertainments, or unhealthy relationships and it is detrimental to the time together.
They know these things are not God’s choice for them, but they pretend everything is fine anyway. The relationship is not satisfying to either of them.
To walk with God means that you and God are in agreement about your life. Can two walk together, unless they are agreed? (Amos 3:3). This is a beautiful picture of sanctification. To walk with God means you have aligned your will with His and seek every day to consider yourself “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20). This is where justification comes from—being aligned with. You don’t have to be perfect in behavior, as none of us is (Romans 3:10), but your heart’s desire is to be pleasing to God, and you are willing to let His Spirit conform you to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29).
God created man for the enjoyment of a walking relationship that involved companionship, dialogue, intimacy, joint decision-making, mutual delight, and shared dominion (Genesis 3:8). We were created by God, for God, and in the image of God for relationship—but not just relationship but also a moving and active relationship. This was part of the order that God intended for us.
It’s not a difficult thing to identify people who walk with God and do so daily. Their lives are a stark contrast to the world around them, like stars in a nighttime sky, they stand out plainly (Philippians 2:15). Joy is present in their hearts. The peace they possess is incredibly evident in their lives regardless of their circumstances. They produce the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23) rather than the fruit of fleshly desire (Galatians 5:19–21).
In Acts 4:13 Peter and John had been arrested for preaching and were brought before the authorities. Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.
When we walk with God every day, the world cannot help but recognize that in spite of our imperfections and lack of knowledge in some areas—we have been with Jesus.
We are to walk with God. That is the journey of intimacy. It is a journey in which you are so engrossed in the relationship that you become person-oriented rather than destination-oriented because the person is the destination. That’s the invitation God is extending to us in Christ: Walk with me. Walk deeply with me. Let me permeate every part of who you are. And let’s go somewhere together. Along the way, we’ll talk. We’ll laugh. We’ll cry. But with each step, have faith that I am making you into who I want you to be.
Churches are to be in the same walking journey with Jesus. He is the head of the church and the one we follow. But distractions can cause us to take our eyes off Him and start to wander about. When a church is plateauing and declining, it is usually because its people have strayed. Chaos is an opportunist. Wherever it can find a crack to get into the church, it will. Chaos may seem like a strong word for the condition of a church, but it does not necessarily mean beginning-of-time chaos but rather disorder in God’s intended purpose chaos.
