Tag Archives: walking with the lord

Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley – Walking With God

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Read | Genesis 6

Once we receive Jesus as Savior, His Spirit indwells us permanently. Yet there is a difference between having salvation and actually walking with the Lord. Being saved involves the forgiveness of sin and the blessing of eternal security, whereas walking with God is a privilege that we live out day by day.

To understand this idea more fully, let’s consider the example of Noah. Genesis 6:9 identifies him as a man who followed the Lord in a God-pleasing way. In other words, he lived by faith. Surely Noah did not understand God’s direction to build an ark. After all, there had never even been any rain, let alone a cataclysmic deluge. Until the flood, mist would rise from the ground to nourish vegetation. But because the Almighty spoke, Noah believed and obeyed.

For us, walking by faith need not mean something as monumental as building an ark to save wildlife from destruction. Instead, it’s likely to involve something more commonplace, such as living with godly priorities, spending time in the Word, or holding to God’s values in a world that belittles them. In fact, it is frequently when there is no crisis or quandary to motivate us that our true character is revealed. When we are faithful with the simple, mundane things, our heavenly Father will entrust us with more.

Believing God and acting accordingly is an important aspect of following Him. Do you have such trust that you obey even when His directions are difficult or confusing? Ask Him to increase your faith, and renew your commitment to follow wherever He leads.

Greg Laurie

Greg Laurie – Spiritual Lethargy

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For you are all children of the light and of the day; we don’t belong to darkness and night. So be on your guard, not asleep like the others. Stay alert and be clearheaded. —1 Thessalonians 5:5–6

It scares me when I meet people who profess to be believers, but they are engaging in extramarital or premarital sex and have rationalized it somehow. They say that God is cool with it. But God is not cool with it. It is a sin against Him.

When you are spiritually lethargic, you are more vulnerable to these sins. Case in point: King David. He was plucked from obscurity as a shepherd boy to become a giant killer in the valley of Elah and later the great king of Israel. He was a wonderful, powerful, and godly man. But after years of walking with the Lord, David put his spiritual life on cruise control, and we read that “late one afternoon, after his midday rest, David got out of bed and was walking on the roof of the palace. As he looked out over the city, he noticed a woman of unusual beauty taking a bath” (2 Samuel 11:2). That woman, by the way, was Bathsheba.

Interestingly, this was the time when wars were being fought. David’s troops were out on the battlefield, and David, the warrior-king, should have been leading them as he always did. Instead, he was kicking back. He was taking some time off. But you don’t feed lust—you starve it. The moment you back off in the spiritual battle, you will be vulnerable. The moment you fall asleep, you will be weak. You can’t take a spiritual vacation.

That is why Paul wrote to Timothy, “Run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts. Instead, pursue righteous living, faithfulness, love, and peace. Enjoy the companionship of those who call on the Lord with pure hearts” (2 Timothy 2:22).

This is the warning: Stay away from those things. Stay away from anything that would encourage immoral living.