3 Things That Prevent Us from Walking With God Like Enoch

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What is your walk with God like?

Are you satisfied with daily time with God? How consistent are you in your daily prayer and Bible reading?

When problems arise, do you turn to God first in prayer, or do you tend to exhaust all of your own ideas first and turn to God when nothing else works?

These are questions I ask myself often; evaluating where I am in my personal walk with Christ.

When we look at the first five chapters of Genesis, we see the story of Creation, the fall of Adam and Eve, the murder of Abel, and then we get to chapter 5 which is a geneology.

If you’re the typical Bible reader, you’ll see all those names and either skim through or just skip the chapter altogether.

But God, being the clever and creative God He is, often tucks little things right smack in the middle of those geneologies.

Like little gold nuggets or gemstones, hiding there, waiting to be discovered.

And right in the middle of all of those weird names we can’t pronounce we see this:

When you look at the rest of the people in this chapter, the majority of them lived over 900 years, Enoch only lived only 1/3 of the the time his peers did.

That would be the equivalent of someone today living until their mid-20s.

But Enoch didn’t die. Instead it says, “God took him away.”

Why? Because Enoch, whose name means “dedicated”, walked faithfully with God.

We don’t read much about Enoch in the Bible. Other than these 4 short verses in Genesis 5, we read in Luke 3 that Enoch is in Jesus’ lineage.

We also find him in the “Hall of Faith”, in Hebrews 11.

By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, “and was not found, because God had taken him”; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God.

Hebrews 11:5

This verse shines a little brighter light on how Enoch’s disappearance was perceived by those around him.

It seems that everyone must have known that God had taken Enoch, because it says, “He had this testimony, that he pleased God”.

It was evident to those around him, by his walk, that he pleased God.

But what is interesting is that the writer of Hebrews goes on to describe how Enoch 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 11:6

So, this verse in Hebrews, that we quote so often, is a clarification of Enoch’s walk with God.

He please God how? By his faith in God.

Finally, we read about Enoch in the book of Jude, which I found very interesting. Most people may not even realize that Enoch is referenced in this very short book of Bible.

In his letter, Jude begins by urging the reader to contend for the faith against apostates and false teachers who are creeping into the church and perverting the gospel.

He says they have “gone the way of Cain” and “have run greedily in the error of Balaam”.

And then in verses 14-15 we read:

Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”

How did Enoch, only 7 generations removed from Adam, know that the Lord was coming a second time (having not yet come the first time!) to judge the world?

Clearly this references Christ’s second coming as we read “…with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones…”

How did he know?

3 Things That Prevent Us from Walking With God Like Enoch

Enoch walked closely with God, faithfully and dedicated; and when we walk with God as Enoch did, God shares His heart with us.

Do we walk with God this closely?

Are there things in our life that prevent us from walking with God as Enoch did?

1. Distractions

I don’t know that there is a generation in all of human history as distracted as this generation.

Technology has so shortened our attention spans that it is hard for us to “tarry one hour”, as Jesus urged His disciples in the garden.

Many of my email subscribers receive a survey from me about their quiet times and one of the questions asks them about their biggest struggle in their daily time with Christ.

The most common answer I receive is that they feel distracted.

It is hard to hear God’s voice speaking to us when it gets lost in the cacophony of notifications, social media, and all of the digital noise we allow in our mind.

Remember, in 1 Kings 19, Elijah didn’t hear God in the wind, earthquake, or fire, but in the still, small voice.

A voice we so often miss, because we’ve allowed so many other voices to traffic in our lives that it is easily drowned out.

2. Filters

From our earliest years, we are taught humanistic doctrines that completely contradict Scripture.

Ideas such as:

• Follow your heart
• Listen to your heart
• Do what makes you happy
• You are enough
• You can’t help how you feel
• God just wants you to be happy

And this is only a sampling of statements that at first blush seem true, but when measured against Scripture are found to be contradictory to what God actually says.

For example: we should never listen to or follow our heart. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?”

Does God really just want us to be happy? Should we just do what makes us happy? The answer to both is no.

God wants us to be holy as He is holy. Yes, His holiness brings joy; but His ultimate desire for isn’t our happiness, but our holiness and His glorification through that.

The only way we will ever completely root out the rat’s nest of humanistic doctrine and ideologies our minds and worldview are infiltrated with is through the renewing of our mind by God’s Word.

There is no other way.

We have to utterly tear down the entire construct of our thinking, dig out it’s foundation, and begin laying down a new foundation and structure made of of “the mind of Christ”, as Paul said.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus

Philippians 2:5

3. Performance

I hope to write an entire article soon about our obsession with performance.

One of the most damaging consequences of a generation saturated in humanistic doctrine and ideologies is the worship and elevation of self.

We are obsessed with our own importance.

There is no better illustration of that than this up and coming generation that is so drunk on their own importance that they are convinced that whatever they think is right and any opposing opinion is automatically wrong, based solely on it’s opposition to their thinking.

It’s befuddling.

We are daily bombarded with the idea that average is a filthy word and if we’re not killing it like the boss babes we are, we’re “settling”.

Nothing less than over-achieving is acceptable.

And this performance mentality keeps us driven, chasing the illusion of success whose standard is ever-changing and morphing and whose goal we never seem to make, leaving us empty, unsatisfied, and in a perpetual state of disappointment and disillusionment.

But in this hot pursuit of performance and success, there is little time to stop, quiet ourselves, and really listen for the voice of God.

We’re too busy planning, goal-making, list-writing, and boss-babe-ing it to have the time.

Here’s the thing: God never changes.

The God who walked with Enoch wants to walk with us. And just as He didn’t speak to Enoch through a megaphone in bullet points and sound bytes, so He will not with us.

He still requires us to slow down, set aside all of the noise of technology, quiet our heart and mind, and listen for His still small voice.

He wants us to take time for Him. Make time for Him.

Ample time.

God’s standard of success isn’t measured by performance, but by presence.

If we are to walk with God the way Enoch did, we need to get rid of the distraction, humanistic filters, and performance mentality and chase after God’s presence in our lives.