"Enoch walked with God" (Gen. 5:24). What does it mean to walk with God? It is to live in the
consciousness of God’s presence, in conscious companionship with God. It is to have with you,
as you go about your daily affairs, the realization that God is with you, so that you may speak to
Him and Him speak to you, and sometimes be with Him in a silence that means more than talk.

What are the results of walking with God?

1. Abounding Joy

"In Thy presence is fullness of joy" (Psa. 16:11). Do you think the psalmist was speaking entirely
about the future? I am sure he was not. Right here in our everyday life in His presence is fullness
of joy.

One of the sweetest joys of earth is congenial companionship. Is not one of the brightest hopes and
gladdest joys of heaven the society or companionship of heaven_especially of the Father and Jesus
Christ the Son. If we have this conscious companionship with God in our present life we have two
heavens. We have the future eternal heaven to which we are hastening and the present one. Oh,
the joy of sweet fellowship with God every day!

We know the joy of walking and talking and being with loved ones on earth. But that is nothing
to the joy of walking with God and talking to Him and having Him speak to us. Fellowship with
God is infinitely better, dearer, and more glorious than any earthly companionship.

2. Security and Peace

"I have set the LORD always before me:because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved"
(Psa. 16:8). War, pestilence, famine may come, but if God be for us and with us, who can be
against us? O friends, if we live in the power of that thought we shall have undisturbed peace. No
matter how war increases, how near it comes to our doors, we shall hear God saying, "Fear not,
for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, yea, I will help
you, yea, I will uphold you with the right hand of My righteousness" (Isa. 41:10). (Editor’s note:
This article was written in 1918 during World War I.) "Though a host should encamp against me,
my heart shall not fear…. One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after, that I may
dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to
inquire in His temple" (Psa. 24:3,4). The secret of abiding peace is conscious companionship with
God.

3. Spiritual Enlightenment

The secret of having an understanding of the truth is communion with God. Look at Enoch; there
is no record that he was a great scholar, yet we are told in Jude 14 and 15 that way back in that
ancient time, thousands of years before Christ, Enoch saw the truth of the Lord’s second
coming_probably the only man in his day. Why? Because he had the spiritual enlightenment that

comes from walking with God. If I went to anyone to learn something about the Word of God, I
would not inquire how much knowledge he had of philosophy or psychology. I would ask, "Does
he walk with God?" In the things of God, in the things that are eternal, the condition of wisdom
and understanding is fellowship with God.

4. Purity of Heart and Life

So many things that we have tolerated become unthinkable when we see them in the true light of
God’s presence. So many things that are done under cover of night would never be done if the
thought that God is with us possessed the soul.

A man who had been given to profanity found it very difficult to overcome it. He went to a godly
minister for advice. "Charlie," said the minister, "would you swear if your father were with you?"

"I don’t think I would," he answered.

"Well, tomorrow when you go to work remember all the time that God is there with you." The
next day, as he went about his work, that thought of God’s presence was with him, and to his
amazement, as he went home at night, he realized that he had been kept from this sin. How many
things we do, say, or think, that we would not do, say, or think if we lived in the consciousness
of God’s presence with us.

5. Beauty of Character

We become like the people with whom we associate. If we associate with God, we become like
Him. When Moses came down from the mountain where he had been for forty days alone with
God, his face shone. So if we habitually are with God, it will illumine and glorify our lives.

6. Usefulness

It is the quiet, potent influence of a holy life that tells. Enoch wrought more for God by just
walking with God than did Nebuchadnezzar who built the grand structures of Babylon or the
Egyptian monarch who built the pyramids and the sphinx to amaze and mystify coming
generations. So today, the men and women who walk with God do more than the political
reformers with all their fair-appearing schemes for transforming this world.

7. Pleasing God

There is another result of walking with God that is far better than all of the foregoing:we please
God. Enoch "had this testimony that he pleased God" (Heb. 11:5). God wants our service, but He
wants our hearts more.

8. Spending Eternity with God

"Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him" (Gen. 5:24). If we walk with God

here, we will spend eternity with Him yonder.

What must we do if we are going to walk with God? First, put our trust in the atoning death of
Christ. In the passage about Enoch in the New Testament it says, "By faith Enoch … pleased
God." The preceding verse shows that faith is rooted in the atonement. God is holy, you and I are
sinners, and there is that great chasm of sin between us; so there is no getting to Him, and no
walking with Him, until that chasm is bridged. That chasm can be bridged in no way except by
the atoning blood of Christ:"Without shedding of blood there is no remission."

If you were to be with God without having come under that atonement, the companionship would
not be joy but agony. Even the seraphim in the presence of God, with two of their six wings cover
their faces and with two their feet, and cry, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts" (Isa. 6:2,3).
But if we take the testimony of this Book, our sins were laid on Christ on the cross and blotted
out. So we can come into His presence and say, "Abba, Father" (Rom. 8:15). Some people are
afraid of God. But the one Being in all the universe I will tell everything to is God.

(From Help and Food, Vol. 36.)