Taken Away

 DEVOTION

TO HEBREWS

TAKEN AWAY

Heb 11:5-6

5 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. 6 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.

NIV

Would it not be a wonderful thing for God to just up and take us away so that we would be like Enoch and could not be found because we were gone without experiencing death. Enoch was a man of faith and all we know about him is that he walked with God. He lived for 365 years and was no more because God took him away. That’s it, that is all we know about him and yet he makes the hall of faith in this eleventh chapter. We don’t know if Enoch did any good deeds, or how he worshipped, all we know is he walked with God. Interestingly, it was after Enoch was sixty-five when he became the father of Methuselah, we are told he walked with God for three hundred years, or the rest of his life. Did he not walk with God those first sixty-five years? Maybe he had a conversion experience at sixty-five. We just don’t know, but the fact still remains that Enoch walked with God, and he was no more for God took him away. This begs the question; what does “walking with God” look like? Can we define it? We know Adam walked with God, but then he failed to do so correctly and was cast out of paradise. God did not take Adam like he did Enoch. Others were taken, and we will get to them, but for now, we need to stay focused on “walking with God” and what that looks like. Certainly, it is more than Sunday morning for one hour. It has to include every day of our lives, and in fact, every hour of each day. Of course, we cannot sit or stand around doing nothing else but worshipping God. Our lives consist of many different activities taking up much of our day, yet in that process of living, can we still walk with God, and what would that look like? We know that we are to keep in step with the Spirit since we live in the Spirit. Maybe that is a key to walking with God, living in the Spirit. But what does that look like? We can say we are keeping in step with the Spirit, but does that mean we are? How can we tell if we are keeping in step with the Spirit and thus walking with God? It seems that keeping in step with the Spirit means that He calls out the cadence for us to walk in and through this life. He is the one who gives us the direction as to where we are to live, work, and worship. It is almost as if we should not be making any decisions based on our desires or plans for our lives, as if we are then we are simply keeping in step with ourselves, not paying the least bit of attention to the cadence of the Spirit, and that would also mean we are not even close to walking with God. Are we so invested in this life, that we miss hearing the cadence of the Spirit? We can only hope that we are keeping in step, following the cadence, the direction of the Spirit doing that which God has for us, his plan for our lives, and if we are following, then maybe we might be considered as walking with God, and someday we will be no more. Perhaps that will be when Jesus comes for us, or just maybe if we are living by faith, we will be taken away.