Making The Most Of Your Walk With God Series

Last Sunday we spoke on Making the Most of the Time We Have.

Time is precious. We really are not here on this earth for very long. We are like when you go to turn the light switch on, and the bulb is shot. One day it will eventually happen. So, how can we make the most of the time we have? We can make the most of the time we have left on earth by making the most of our walk with God. Many people live carelessly not giving much thought about their relationship with God. One day we will all have to stand before the Creator of this universe. The question that demands an answer is this: Will this God be your Heavenly Father who will receive you as a forgiven child? Or will this God be your Judge who will expel you to an eternal punishment?

To make the most of your walk with God, it is essential that you know Christ as your Lord and Savior. Apart from Christ there is no walk with God. Apart from Christ there is no saving relationship with God. To the person who is outside of God’s saving grace, I urge you to go to Jesus. He is ready to receive you. I pray you will find Jesus to be your Savior this very day.

To the child of God I urge you to make the most of your walk with the Lord! Don’t be a careless Christian who lives day by day with no thought of a deeper walk with Christ. Don’t settle for a “I know-nothing; I feel-nothing; I want-nothing; I desire-nothing”.

I would seriously question whether I was a believer if I did not want to know more of Christ. I would seriously question my salvation if I did not feel and sense God’s presence from time to time. It’s not that our faith is based on feelings, but I should have some sense of God at work in my life. I would seriously question my salvation if I did not want anything at all from the Lord. I would seriously question where I stand with God if I did not desire anything of the Lord.

In Psalm 1 we have a plea for a deeper, more solid, more productive walk with God.

The person who has a close walk with God is called Blessed!

So, how can we make the most of our walk with God? How can it become a blessed Walk?

To make the most of our walk with God, we will need to look carefully in three directions and answer three important questions.

1. LOOK AROUND. How are you being influenced? (vv.1,2)

There are only two possible ways we can be influenced. Either we are influenced with godly influence, or with ungodly influence. We need to look around and ask ourselves the question: How are we being influenced? We are surrounded by all kinds of influence. What are we allowing to influence us? To shape us? To mold us?

(a) The Ungodly Influence v.1 You don’t have to teach kids to be bad. They learn that quite well. We were by nature the children of wrath. We must be delivered from wrath. Thank God, in Christ, He has rescued us, and made us a child of God. Yet, we must beware of ungodly influences. It gets worse and worse. Note the stages of ungodliness:

(1) Walking in the counsel of the ungodly. Walk speaks of the direction we are going. Turn from ungodly counsel. Don’t go that direction. Some folks start each day by reading their horoscope. That’s the counsel they get each day. It’s ungodly counsel. Some people will consult some psychic they heard on TV. Some folks will listen to a “talk show” and get counsel on how to deal with everyday life. Some folks will buy a magazine just to read some ungodly counsel that’s not worth the paper it’s printed on.

When we go in the direction of worldly wisdom, and forsaking godly wisdom, we are under ungodly influences. The next step is…

(2) Standing in the way of sinners. After we go in the direction of seeking advice from the ungodly, we move from consulting the ungodly to identifying with the ungodly. Standing speaks of how we are now identifying with the way of sinners. We are not opposing their viewpoint, we are embracing what they say. At first we walk to the ungodly to listen to what they say, now we don’t walk back to where we should be, we stand where they stand. We identify with their position. There’s only one position that’s worth having----that’s God’s position. There’s only one viewpoint that’s worth having---that’s God’s viewpoint. Everything else must go to the TRASH CAN!!!

(3) Sitting in the seat of the scornful. Sitting speaks of a resting place. We have landed on a position that we feel very comfortable with. We first just walked around some ungodly counsel, then we began to stand around in ungodly counsel, finally we adopt it for our very own. We now sit down and take our seats. We sit in the seat of the scornful. SCOFFERS! MOCKERS! We now embrace ungodliness and scoff and mock at everything that is holy and godly.