WALKING BEFORE GOD: BENEFITS AND STRUGGLES
There are several benefits to walking before God, and we’ll explore some of them. The first benefit is quite simple and unimaginable, but it is that you will never experience death. The Bible tells us that Enoch walked with God, and he was no more; he did not know death, he did not perish. If the Bible says that the righteous shall live by faith, it means that they die due to unbelief. This also means that faith guarantees us life and divine intervention.
God invites us to walk in the spirit because when we walk in the flesh, we sin, and the wages of sin are death. This means that those who walk in the spirit will not die but will live in every sense of the word, both after death and in all areas of life (emotional, physical, material, marital, etc.).
The second benefit is that those who walk before God walk in divine supernatural provisions. We can see this with the people of Israel during their journey in the desert.
“You gave them your good Spirit to teach them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst. For forty years, you sustained them in the wilderness; they lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell.” Nehemiah 9:22-24
Walking before God leads us to bear much fruit for the glory of our God.
“And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” Colossians 1:9-10
Finally, walking before God leads us to grow in our knowledge of God.
“And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” Colossians 1:9-10
Walking before God is a command; God said to Abraham in Genesis 17, “Walk before me and be blameless.”
As a Christian and as a pastor, I can see how challenging it is for believers to walk before God. Many give up on God’s promises because they delay, some struggle to crucify their flesh and rush ahead prematurely, and many find it difficult to understand and do His will. Unfortunately, some struggle on all these fronts.
However, we also have many testimonies of people who have chosen to walk with God, and their lives are crowned with glory. They are achievers, always in the right place at the right time, triumphing over all situations. This can serve as a testimony to those who find it difficult. The elders in faith, the fathers who finished well, are models of righteousness and faith for us.
THE DEVIL’S STRATEGY IN THIS STRUGGLE
In this battle, the devil will try by all means to lead us out of God’s promise, making us follow bad advice, making us believe that God does not answer prayers, or that God has not answered our prayers. The devil wants to make us question God’s goodness and faithfulness to His promises, and also to compare ourselves to those whose prayers have been answered. He will attack your endurance in prayer, just like the parable of the unjust judge in Luke 18, because fulfillment must meet persevering faith. He will urge you to act and react according to your flesh, not according to God’s Word, seeking worldly solutions in the midst of waiting or walking with God. Finally, in this battle, the devil will lead you to do your will rather than God’s.
You will notice that it was only after Abraham had Ishmael, the solution given to him by his wife Sarah through her flesh, that God told him to walk before Him and be blameless. This means that in this battle, the devil leads you to substitute yourself for God and exalt yourself through the flesh or advice that may seem spiritual. So: Resist him with unwavering faith while being filled with the Holy Spirit. Take authority over him and cast out thoughts that are contrary to God’s will.
This text is an excerpt from the book “WIN THE FIGHT OF FAITH” written by Marc SAKALA.
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