We often talk about receiving direction from God. But the first step to receiving guidance and direction is to choose to walk with God. In other words, we must choose to follow God’s plans and purposes for our lives instead of our own plans and ambitions.
As you walk with God, you can have continual fellowship with Him. You can talk to Him as a loving Father and listen to your heart as He talks to you. You just need to trust Him, and He’ll show you what you need to do.
Keeping In Step With Jesus
Walking in divine direction means keeping in step with God. Enoch walked with God. He kept pace with God. He didn’t lag behind, and he didn’t run out ahead of God.
Jesus really doesn’t want us to be either too fast or too slow to obey Him. But as He explained to me, “If you are too fast, you get out ahead of me. You’re not walking with me or behind me. That means you’ll lose direction. At least if you are walking behind Me, I’m still leading you.”
We should endeavor to learn how to stay right in step with God, obeying His will and moving in His timing as we walk in His divine direction for our lives.
God isn’t going to agree with your plans and opinions that don’t line up with His Word and His will, so you might as well go ahead and agree with God. Most of us, at one time or another, have made the mistake of making our plans and then asking God to bless them. But if we’re going to walk with God, we must make the decision to continually seek Him and to get in agreement with His will for our lives.
Enoch lived in a different day than we do; and he walked under a different covenant. Here are some important things the New Testament teaches about walking with God:
First: just as Enoch did, we are to walk by faith. The New Testament says we are to “Walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham” (Rom. 4:12). Our walk with God under the New Covenant begins with the first “step of faith” – the new birth: “For by grace are ye SAVED THROUGH FAITH” (Eph. 2:8).
After we have taken the first step of faith and have been born again, 2 Corinthians 5:7 says we are to walk by faith and not by sight. To “walk by sight” means to live according to our physical senses and mental reasonings. We face a constant battle between our flesh and our spirit in this life as we endeavor to walk by faith instead of by sight.
Certainly there are some times in life when we must walk by common sense. For instance, we better have enough common sense not to step out in front of an oncoming car! However, in spiritual matters, common sense often contradicts what God has said in His Word.
Christians often have become so accustomed to walking by common sense that they don’t walk by faith. Therefore, they fail to receive God’s blessings. When God has spoken – and He has spoken to us in His Word – we are to walk in faith, even if what He has said contradicts common sense.
Second, the New Testament walk with God is a walk in the spirit. You simply can’t walk with God under the New Covenant without walking according to the Word.
Enoch walked with God under a different covenant. He didn’t have the written Word like we do, yet he walked with God. How much more should we be able to walk with God when He has given us His Holy written Word!
We are to feed upon the Word of God daily and walk in the light of its truth. When we walk in the light, the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin so we can walk in fellowship with God the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ (1 John 1:3,7). We can continually fellowship with them through the Word and through prayer.
When we walk in the light of the Word and in fellowship with the Father and Jesus, we are also in fellowship with one another. That’s what First John 1:7 says: “…if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, WE HAVE FELLOWSHIP ONE WITH ANOTHER.”
We need one another. And we need to walk in love one toward another – not only those of our own particular fellowship – but toward all fellow Christians. When I get to the end of my life, I’d like people to be able to say about me what they said about Enoch: “He walked with God.”
Could people say that about you? The time is short. That day is fast approaching when Jesus will return to this earth. Today more than ever, we need to learn how to walk with God!
Excerpt permission granted by Faith Library Publications
Rev. Hagin served in Christian ministry for nearly 70 years and was known as the "father of the modern faith movement." His teachings and books are filled with vivid stories that show God's power and truth working in his life and the lives of others.
Rev. Hagin was born on Aug. 20, 1917, in McKinney, Texas, a son of the late Lillie Viola Drake Hagin and Jess Hagin.
Rev. Hagin was sickly as a child, suffering from a deformed heart and an incurable blood disease. He was not expected to live and became bedfast at age 15. In April 1933 during a dramatic conversion experience, he reported dying three times in 10 minutes, each time seeing the horrors of hell and then returning to life.
In August of 1934, Rev. Hagin was miraculously healed, raised off a deathbed by the power of God and the revelation of faith in God's Word. Two years later, he preached his first sermon as pastor of a small community church in Roland, Texas.
In 1937, Rev. Hagin was baptized in the Holy Spirit and began ministering in Pentecostal churches. During the next 12 years he pastored five churches in Texas: in the cities of Tom Bean, Farmersville (twice), Talco, Greggton, and Van. In 1949, he began an itinerant ministry as a Bible teacher and evangelist.
During the next 14 years, Jesus appeared to Rev. Hagin eight times in visions that changed the course of his ministry. In 1966, he moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he opened a ministry office. That same year, he taught for the first time on radio—on KSKY in Dallas. In 1967, he began a regular radio broadcast that continues today as Faith Seminar of the Air. Teaching by his son, Rev. Kenneth W. Hagin, is also heard on the program.
In 1968, Rev. Hagin published the first issues of The Word of Faith magazine, which now has a monthly circulation of more than 250,000. The publishing outreach he founded, Faith Library Publications, has circulated more than 65 million copies of books by Rev. Hagin, Rev. Hagin Jr., and several other authors worldwide. Faith Library Publications also has produced more than 9 million audio teaching tapes and CDs.
Other outreaches of Kenneth Hagin Ministries include RHEMA Praise, a weekly television broadcast hosted by Rev. and Mrs. Kenneth W. Hagin; RHEMA Correspondence Bible School; RHEMA Alumni Association; RHEMA Ministerial Association International; RHEMA Supportive Ministries Association; the RHEMA Prayer and Healing Center; and a prison ministry.
In 1974, Rev. Hagin founded RHEMA Bible Training Center USA and in 1976 moved the school and ministry offices to Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, where they remain. To date, RHEMA Bible Training Center USA has 23,000 alumni, and RHEMA Bible Training Centers have opened in 13 other nations: Austria, Brazil, Colombia, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Romania, Samoa, Singapore, South Africa, and Thailand. Together, the 14 schools have more than 28,000 graduates worldwide.
RHEMA Bible Church, pastored by Rev. Hagin Jr., began holding services in October of 1985 on the RHEMA campus in Broken Arrow and has since grown to become a thriving congregation with more than 8,000 members.
Rev. Hagin's daughter and son-in-law, Pat Harrison and the late Doyle "Buddy" Harrison, founded Harrison House Publishers in 1975 and Faith Christian Fellowship International Church in 1977. Both organizations are based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Until shortly before his death in September 2003, Rev. Hagin continued to travel and teach throughout the United States and into Canada conducting All Faiths' Crusades and other special meetings.