Looking Unto Jesus
"I
will walk before the LORD
in the land of the living."
-PSALM
116:9 [KJV]
There
is a distinction between walking before God and
walking with God. To walk before God is to walk
with an abiding sense of God's eye being upon us; to walk with a
desire to do those things which are pleasing in His
sight; to walk in His
ordinances blameless; to walk before His
people with our garments unspotted by the world; in a word, to walk
before Him
in private as in public, alone and in company, before the Church and
the world, by day and by night, as we should walk if we had a
personal view of His
glorious majesty in heaven before our eyes.
Now
if you carried about with you a deep and daily sense that God saw
every thought, marked every movement, heard every word, and observed
every action, this sense of His
presence would put a restraint upon your light, trifling, and foolish
spirit. You would watch your thoughts, your words, your actions, as
living under a sense of God's heart-searching eye. This is to
walk before God.
But
we read of Enoch that he "walked with God."
This is a more advanced stage of the divine life. To walk with God
is to walk with Him
in sweet familiarity, in holy confidence, in a blessed sense of
interest in His
love and grace, and thus to walk with Him
and talk with Him
as a man walketh and talketh with his friend. There are some who walk
before God, but how few walk with God! Many live under a more or less
deep and daily sense of God's heart-searching presence, who are not
admitted into this sweet familiarity, nor enjoy the blessedness of
this heavenly intercourse.
-Gospel
report by preacher J.C. Philpot (1802-1869)
March
20th, EARS FROM HARVESTED SHEAVES
Comments