Hebrews Chapters 11 Part 2

Hebrews 11:5 – 6 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Enoch’s story is in Genesis 5: 18-24. It seems that Enoch started his walk with God after his first son was born. Many times becoming parents brings people to church. All of a sudden we are given this awesome responsibility for someone else’s life and our priorities begin to straighten out.

If you walk with someone you have to go in the same direction, don’t you? If I were taking a walk with my husband and he went one way and I the other, we wouldn’t be walking together. Or if we started off together and I turned off and he kept going, we wouldn’t be walking together. Or if I walked really fast and he walked really slow.

We need to go in God’s direction and accept His timing. Not insist on our own. We need to ask ourselves what adjustments must we make to our schedules, to our attitudes, to our ambitions, our personal habits – so that we can truly walk with God. If we don’t know His pace or direction we can’t do it. We find this out (His pace and direction) through prayer and reading the Bible and spending time with Him.

God really wants us to spend time walking and talking with Him. He had that with Adam and Eve in the garden. He created us for fellowship. Enoch walked with God for 300 years and became increasingly aware of His presence and love. The Bible doesn’t say it was a drudgery or he got tired of it. What is keeping you from walking with God?

The second part of this (verse 6) is where we are told it is impossible to please God without faith. He says we need to believe in God and believe He is interested in us. Even the demons know He exists! We are called to have a relationship with Him. Where it says in that verse, “He rewards those who earnestly seek Him” my application Bible answers a question we ask all the time – using this sentence – “Sometimes we wonder about the fate of those who haven’t heard of Christ and have not even had a Bible to read. God assures us that those who honestly seek Him, who act in faith on the knowledge of God that they possess, will be rewarded. Those who hear the gospel are responsible for what they have heard.”

Less and less people today have not heard of Christ. His disciples have done a good job taking His message to all nations. What this says to me is, we don’t need to worry about babies that die or the mentally disabled, but anyone who has heard and is capable of understanding – either accepts or rejects Him.

Call upon the Lord

From the story of Enosh in Genesis 4:26
Today God seeks individuals who, because they realize their weakness and confess their need of God’s strength, will call upon God through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ who reveals Him to us. He promises to fill the consciously hungry (Matthew 5:6) and to supply the need of those who know they are spiritually poor. (Rev.3:17-21)
However, we receive in proportion as we choose to take the time to “call upon Him” in humble and earnest prayer. We “do not have” because we “do not ask God.” (James 4:2)

Enoch
From the story of Enoch found in the book of Genesis: What profound fulfillment of personality Enoch must have experienced as he set his heart with a holy ambition to walk with God daily for the rest of his life! May we all choose to have such a holy ambition for ourselves!