How are you putting your faith into action? Are you working out your salvation? Do you advance the Kingdom of God? What kind of legacy are you leaving? Are you “Plowing Forward!” in your walk with Christ? These are the things we look at this week in Episode 18.
Host: Jared Ogea
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Music from Pixabay
Enoch lived sixty-five years and became the father of Methuselah. Then Enoch walked with God three hundred years after becoming the father of Methuselah, and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.
This quick glimpse at the father of Methuselah is fascinating to me. He is a man only mentioned twice in the bible, but the attributes attributed to him are outstanding. He has these four verses here in Genesis and is also mentioned in Hebrews 11. Some refer to this chapter in Hebrews as the “Hall of Faith.” A list of deeds performed by men who did something extraordinary through their faith in God. Of the three attributes of Enoch, what was mentioned in Hebrews was that he walked with God, and then he had been taken up. His witness was that he lived a life pleasing to God.
What does it mean to walk with God? For Enoch, the people around him noticed that he lived a life pleasing to God. Did that mean living a “blessed life” by our terms today? Was he rich? Did it imply he had the latest wagon to haul his kids around? The bible doesn’t say, except that he was pleasing to God in his walk with God. The Hebrew word for “walk” is Halak. The definition is to go, come, walk. The NASB Halak is translated into over a hundred words that are some type of moment. These include following, growing, living, and passing.
How was Enoch following, growing, living, and passing in his life that everyone witnessed and said, “Hmm, he is pleasing to the Lord.” I mean, we are only five chapters into the bible. Sin had entered the world; they were kicked out of the garden. The law was not written yet. Jesus hasn’t died for our sins yet, so the Holy Spirit had not come. And yet Enoch walked in a manner that was pleasing to God. I live in a time that the law is written, Jesus came and fulfilled the law, and I have the Holy Spirit with me, and yet I struggle with hang-ups, compulsions, and addictions. Taking a look at Enoch allows me to examine my own life. To question my motives in following God.
Is there evidence that I am growing as a Christ-follower? Does my daily life reflect a Holy and Just God full of mercy and kindness? Am I passing the test before me that is life? Am I choosing Jesus above all else?
I wonder who had helped Enoch on his walk in his life? Did his father teach him the way to follow God? Was he able to hear stories of Adam and Eve and how they walked in the garden in the cool of the day? Did he have friends or family that helped him be accountable for his actions? What did he do? How did he live his life? Maybe, a better question for us is, how are we living our lives? Not to get into a comparison trap of trying to measure up to Enoch, but to say it can be done. We can put down the things in our lives that take away from following Jesus and take our cross and follow him daily. Living a holy lifestyle that is a direct reflection of who we are in Jesus.
Not a perfect life, but one striving for that finish line of meeting Jesus face to face. And when we get there, we can look back and say we did everything we could to follow, grow, and live a life pleasing to God.
Father, we ask for every hindrance that so easily keeps us from you to be removed. Please, remove the blinders on our eyes so that we can see you as you are. A great and powerful holy God that is full of mercy and grace. Please help us understand what it means to follow you and what it takes to pick up our cross. Thank you for your son, and thank you for the cross. Amen.
