The Walk of Faith

“Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him” (Genesis 5:24, NKJV). The original Hebrew meaning of “walked” implies that Enoch walked arm in arm with God, continually conversing with him and growing closer to him. Enoch lived 365 years, and in him we see a new kind of believer. The Lord was his very life—so much so that at the end of his life, he did not see death (see Hebrews 11:5).

Enoch learned to walk pleasingly before God in the midst of a wicked society. He was an ordinary man with all the same problems and burdens we carry. He was not a hermit hidden away in a wilderness cave, hiding to be holy. His life was filled with obligations and responsibilities with a wife and children. 

We know from Scripture that Enoch did not taste death. But the phrase “he was not” means something deeper. It means “he was not of this world.” In his spirit and in his senses, Enoch was not a part of this wicked world. Each day as he walked with the Lord, he became less attached to the things of the world. Like Paul, he died daily to this earthly life, and he was taken up in his spirit to a heavenly realm.

Yet while he walked on Earth, Enoch fulfilled all his responsibilities, and none of the demands of his life could keep him from his walk with God. Hebrews 11:5 says clearly: “Before [Enoch’s] was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God.” What was it about Enoch that pleased God so much? It was that his walk with God produced in him the kind of faith God loves.

These two verses cannot be separated: “For before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11:5-6). We hear this latter verse often, but rarely in connection with the former. Yet throughout the Bible and all of history, those who walked closely with God became men and women of deep faith.

If the Church is walking with God daily, communing with him continually, the result will be a people full of faith—true faith that pleases God.