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By
Jackie L. Calhoun
Credit: Unsplash
Introduction
God desires to walk with us. He has made every provision to walk with us. God comes to us and invites us to genuinely, daily, and forever, walk with Him. This little book is a step-by-step guide to help us walk with God, starting right now, right where we are.
To walk with someone is to take time for some one-on-one intimacy. It can be a time of relaxation, a time of “letting your guard down” to have some real communication and get things worked out. It can be a time of renewal and refreshing and of getting our focus in life reset to bigger and better things.
God desires only good things for us. His invitation for us to walk with Him is so He can bless us, so He can benefit us in greater ways than we can imagine. Ephesians 3: 20
Because of past experiences with people who have been in our life, and because of people we have observed at a distance, our perspective might be that God is not a good God, that God is not a just God. We might think God is “out to get us,” and we might not understand a lot of things about God. He is not out to get us! God is the good Father. He is bigger than we can comprehend. And He is out to help us in every way.
To walk with God is to be open to allow Him to help us in every way according to His wisdom and His proven way. To walk with God is to allow Him to set us free from the inside out, in ways in which we did not even know we were bound! Freedom! Liberty! Peace! Joy! Everyday happiness! Power to overcome challenges in everyday life! These are elements of life that all mankind desires. And do you know what? Good News! God desires these things for us, too! As we give ourselves to walk with God, we can experience these things in our life more and more. So, get your walking shoes on! Let’s walk with God!
In the Beginning
In the beginning, man (mankind—male and female) started out walking with and fellow shipping with a holy God. Choices were made by man that broke that fellowship. Man no longer felt worthy to walk with God. Man felt that God did not want to walk with him. Fear, guilt and shame were some of the results of man’s sin and poor choices.
God desired to walk with man, but He could not. Man, by his sin, had separated himself from God. God came to the man. God brought self-realization to the man. God caused the man to see what he was doing to himself. Then, God brought a solution to the man. This solution would enable man to again walk with God without fear, guilt, and shame.
Man (male and female) tried to cover their nakedness with fig leaves. In man’s own mind and emotions, this was a solution; but their efforts soon dried up and fell off. The best man could do was a repeated, temporary fix that was not according to God’s plan, and that did not work. With this, God killed an animal and provided a permanent animal skin covering for man. This sacrifice of God was prophetic of what God would do for all mankind through the blood sacrifice of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The historical fact is that Jesus came and gave Himself as that one permanent all-sufficient sacrifice on our behalf. God has received His sacrifice as full payment for our sin. In God’s holy court of justice, by what Jesus has done, we can now go completely free from all our sin. By the work of Jesus Christ, we can be completely free from fear, guilt and shame. By the work of Jesus Christ, we can now walk with a holy God in the same manner as man, in the beginning, walked with God in the garden of Eden. Genesis, chapters 1-3
The Gospel (Good News) of the Lord Jesus Christ
God is an absolutely holy and just God. Mankind is in a fallen state with a sinful nature. Mankind is spiritually separated from God, and can do nothing within himself to join himself to a holy God. We cannot be good enough, we cannot do enough good works, and we cannot work and earn our way into a relationship with this holy God.
Father God, seeing the plight of man, sent His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus was supernaturally conceived of the Spirit of God and born of a virgin named Mary. He was a man in a flesh body who lived an absolutely holy life by the Word and Spirit of God.
Jesus willingly laid His life down to become the once-for-all holy sacrifice to remove sin from mankind completely. Sin brings death. Jesus laid His righteous life down in death to remove sin and break the power of death. Father God accepted Jesus’ sacrifice as the complete payment for the sins of all mankind and for the destruction of death.
Because Jesus was holy, death had no power over Him. Jesus willingly gave Himself as the blood sacrifice unto death for all mankind, and God raised Him from the dead. This broke the power of death for those who are “in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5: 17). Those who are “in Christ” are believers who are joined to the Lord Jesus Christ by faith. Those who believe this good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and turn from sin and totally surrender their sinful nature and life into the hands of God, are joined to the Lord Jesus Christ in spirit (1 Corinthians 6: 17; Ephesians 5: 30). This union by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ brings the inward peace of eternal life. God’s life within us is eternal life. With God’s life, all things are possible.
The same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead comes into the believer to live inside the spirit of man. This is a new, holy life that is free from sin. With the holy life of God coming within the believer, now the promise of the Father can be fulfilled; the same Holy Spirit power that was upon Jesus can now come upon the believer. By the life of the Holy Spirit within, and by the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit upon, the believer can now walk with God, cooperate with God, and do the works of God.
To believe in the Lord Jesus Christ is to surrender all our sinful life and nature to God, and exchange our life and nature for the Holy life and nature of God along with His supernatural power. With this, our life is no longer our own. We surrender all ownership to God. By this act of exchanging and surrendering our life to God in faith, and receiving God’s life within and His power upon, all things become new.
Water Baptism
Our initial public identification with the Lord Jesus Christ is for us to be baptized (immersed) in water. This is an act of obedience to the Lord, demonstrating that we, and all our sin, are dead with Christ Jesus and raised with Him by the power of God into a completely new life. In water baptism we are publicly identifying with all who the Lord Jesus Christ is. We are identifying with His Lordship, with His person in the flesh, and with His baptism of the Holy Spirit (infilling, anointing of the Holy Spirit).
Holy Spirit Baptism
Just like we are immersed in water, showing our death and resurrection with Christ Jesus as our Lord, so are we to be immersed in the Holy Spirit. Just as we believe our sins are taken away by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, so are we to believe and receive and experience the supernatural power of God upon our life. This anointing (smearing upon) of the Spirit of God is promised by the Father to every believer. God does not force His Spirit upon us. We are to ask God for His Spirit to be upon us in supernatural power and avail ourself to God to receive and experience His power. By having His life and nature within, and by having His supernatural power upon us, we can be in total fellowship with the Father, walking with a holy, supernatural God.
The purpose of the baptism of the Spirit is for the bold, liberated propagation of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel is to be taken throughout the world with a demonstration of the nature of God, and of the supernatural healing, miracle-working power of the Spirit of God.
The baptism of the Holy Spirit is also for the supernatural edification, the building up, of God’s people in the faith of the Son of God. By the Spirit, and by the operation of the faith of the Son of God, people are healed, delivered, set free and edified (built up) in every way. Also, the Spirit brings revelation beyond our natural ability and understanding. The Spirit brings joy and peace that goes beyond natural joy and peace. The Spirit gives strength, resilience and endurance that goes beyond natural strength, resilience and endurance. The Spirit brings us into the liberty of true praise and worship of the Father. The Father seeks those who will worship Him in Spirit and in truth. These operations of the Spirit are all in the purpose of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
By this life of God within, and by this power of God upon our life, we are now in the position to walk with God. We are now positioned to live out God’s purpose for our life in His power. This position in Christ is by faith.
By God’s work in our life, He has positioned us to walk with Him. Now, how do we actually experience walking with God? Walking with God is also by faith. This faith is the faith of the Son of God that takes action. So, let’s take our first step in faith to be actually experiencing walking with God.
Step One—Submit to God
God is the doctor. We are the patient. When we go see a doctor, we go in an attitude of submission to hear from him and receive help and benefit from him for our condition. God is the perfect and all-sufficient doctor who wants us to be fully “healthy, wealthy and wise” in spirit, soul, body, in family, financially, socially and eternally. This is His goal for us. This is why He invites us to walk with Him, so He can bring about beneficial changes in our life to show His goodness in our life in a constantly greater way.
Submit means to “accept or yield to a superior force or to the authority or will of another person” (online, Oxford Languages). This means total surrender. It means we give God all of our life with nothing held back. This means giving God all our past, all our beliefs and all our experiences whether good or bad. It means giving God our sin and the things of death and the devil and all things of unrighteousness.
Submit means to give God all our relationships, whether good or bad. God’s design is to take all our life and make good come from it. For this to happen, we are to put all people—children, parents, grandparents, spouse (s), pastors, teachers, etc.—every relationship into God’s hands. It is like formatting the hard drive of a computer—everything gets wiped off, wiped clean, so that just what is good and right is programmed into it. All the viruses of bad influence and teaching are wiped off the hard drive.
Anything held onto is an idol that we put before God. Us holding to anything will interfere with how God wants to bless us. We will get into His way of what He wants to do for us and everything concerning us. Everything and everybody are to be put into God’s all-caring, all-wise hands. That which is good and of God will be safely kept in God’s care for us. That which is not good for us will lose its power on us. That which is good for us will be administered back into our life from the hand of God.
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Step Two—Repent, Renounce, Receive
We are to follow the doctor’s orders and prescriptions. He gives us things to do and not to do, and prescribes the right medicines to take at the right time. Cooperation with the doctor is our key to healing, health and full recovery. Cooperation with God is our key to all the good things of God.
Repent means “to have a heartfelt change of mind and heart, turning away from sin and turning toward God” (online, AI Overview).
To repent means to turn from our life and our way, and turn to God to go His way. Sometimes, involved in repentance, is seeing that we are in a state of rebellion, preferring our own way over God’s way. Sometimes we simply just see that we are in a lost, fearful, helpless “sick” condition before God, and this brings about a need for repentance. Sometimes we see that we are just a good, moral religious person with no real connection with God. Any peace we have is based on performance. If we don’t perform enough or correctly, we stand condemned in our conscience. All we know is the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We have not yet partaken of the tree of life, or, we are failing to partake of the tree of life.
Repentance is taking honest ownership for our guilt, our deficiency and our need, and turning it over to God, trusting Him to take it into His hands. By repentance, we are seeing and turning from and bringing our condition to the goodness and mercy of God, calling upon Him.
Renounce means to “formally declare one’s abandonment of a claim, right, or possession” (online Oxford Languages).
To renounce is to say off, to speak out loud, that we commit into the hands of God our own life, our parents, our grandparents, our children, our grands and great grands, all relationships family and non-family, and all our past. It also includes “saying off” our ability, our knowledge and the good things we possess. It is “saying off” the bad stuff in our life. That which is good and beneficial, God will see to it that we retain it. There is no safer place than to place things in the hands of God. That which is tainted and perverse is broken off our life by our giving it to God and renouncing it. By renouncing, we are releasing our life and our condition into the hands of God.
Receive means to “be given, presented with, or paid something” (online Oxford Languages).
God offers all good things in His kingdom for His people. He does not force it upon anyone. God has done everything needed in order to put these good things in place. He has given, presented, and He has paid for us to have all good things. It is our part to come to Him and open our life to Him. By opening our life to Him, we can personally receive and experience that which God has put in place for us. By receiving, we are honoring God’s goodness and mercy extended to us to help us in every way.
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Step Three—See Specifics
When we go to the doctor, we tell him our symptoms. We tell everything that is going on for examination and evaluation. A symptom is an outward sign of what is going on internally. All we know is the outward. The doctor is trained to address the inward cause. God knows the inward cause of what we are experiencing in our outward life.
Specific means “clearly defined or identified” (online Oxford Languages).
In giving our life to the Lord Jesus Christ, God will work in us to show us specifics with which He is dealing. He will show specific areas of our life, specific relationships, specific things and specific actions to take, or, specific actions we should not take.
God speaking to us is most of the time an inward knowing. Even if God uses a person to speak to us, what that person says will resonate with our inner man. As God prompts and speaks to us, showing us what He wants us to do or not do, we are to submit, repent, renounce, and receive, and thank Him for speaking to us and guiding us.
God, putting His finger on specific areas of our life, is like a fire that burns off bondages and hindrances and lights our path. It is God closing every open door to the enemy of our soul. The devil does not want us to have a successful life in Christ. By our yielding to God to work in our life, the enemy has no place in us. This is how we resist the devil. It is by first submitting to God, then, repenting, renouncing and receiving the promises of the Word of God and affirming and acting on those promises.
God speaks to us as an inward knowing to show us what we need to receive in our life. He cleanses, then He renews. Renewing means receiving the good things God has for us. Renewing is being cleansed from the sinful deeds and nature of man, and being filled with the supernatural Holy Spirit and nature of God. Having received the nature and power of God, we can then walk in that nature and power, walking with God. God shows specifics of cleansing and specifics of what we need for renewal. Titus 3: 4-7
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Step Four—Stay in the Place with God to Receive His Promises
Sometimes the doctor will prescribe antibiotics. We will be instructed that even if we begin feeling better, continue taking them until all the pills are gone. We don’t want to stop short of God’s complete work and have a relapse. We are to allow God to work in our life to completion, going beyond just information to a demonstration.
We are to stay in this place of allowing God to work with us to show us specific things in our life. That means setting aside time each day, preferably first thing in the morning, to worship the Lord in submission, repentance, renunciation, and receiving by faith. In this place with God, we talk to Him with different kinds of prayers, and we make affirmations, bold declarations, of the promises of God so God’s life and power will be loosed to operate in our life, renewing us into His image. Life and death are in the power of the tongue. With the heart we believe to righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made to bring about change and salvation in our life in every way. It very important that what we say out loud is in agreement with what God’s Word says. Proverbs 18: 21; Romans 10: 10
The sword of the Spirit is the Word of God (Hebrews 4: 12). Allowing God to speak to us through His Word is a major part of staying in the place with God to receive His promises. Scholars say there are about 2400 promises in God’s Word. God will back up His Word with signs following. God, by His Spirit, will make the promises of the Word of God become our experience as we come into agreement with Him by faith in His Word.
One side of the coin is submission, repentance and renunciation. The other side of the coin is receiving and speaking out the promises of the Word into our life. God wants to cleanse us from all unholiness so He can fill us with His holiness. His holiness is fulfilled in us by His Word and His Spirit operating in our life. If our words are not in agreement with His Word, we are hindering His operation in our life. If our words are in agreement with His Word, we are cooperating (co-operating) with the Spirit and power of God to bring about the changes that need to be in our lives and in the lives of others.
From the place of cleansing and renewing, we are then able to clearly hear the voice of the Father to take action. As Jesus did nothing except what He heard and saw from the Father, so is our walk to be with the Father. By hearing from God, our works won’t be dead religious works. We will be walking with God to do His works and not our own. In this there is fruit that remains, eternal fruit, born in the will of God to the glory of God.
Staying in this place with God is our making room for His dealings with us each day. This will allow Him to cleanse us from bondage and bring us into the full liberty of His love, His righteousness, and His supernatural power each day. Staying in this place with God brings healing to our inner man and to our body. It brings forgiveness, which extends healing to others and frees us from any bondage cast upon us from others actions (Psalms 55: 2-3). Staying in this place with God brings restoration and infilling with His Holy Spirit with the liberty and leadership of His Spirit.
The main thing in staying in this place with God is that we allow Him to work in our inner being so there are no hidden deals cut in our heart with God or any hidden agendas. Within ourselves, we cannot truly know our own heart. We are biased to ourself. It takes the presence of God, who is Light, to cut through our pride and our natural self-preservation, and reveal the inward, hidden things of our heart. To walk with God, there can be no idols of proud self-justification and self-righteousness. There can be no blaming of others. There can be no heed to the dictates of shame. Staying in this place with God is us taking personal responsibility for our life before God. It takes the presence and light of God shining in our heart for us to see these things as the idols which they are that we hold in our heart.
For all the gods of the people are idols: but the Lord made the heavens. Glory and honour are in his presence; strength and gladness are in his place. 1 Chronicles 16: 26-27
By staying in this place with God on a daily basis, we allow God to cleanse our inner being. God does not look on just the outward things of the mind and emotions of man. God looks on the heart to change us permanently from the inside out, something we cannot do of ourselves.1 Corinthians 4: 1-5
Submit, repent, renounce, receive, make bold affirmations in agreement with God’s Word unto the renewal of our minds—walk on with God in freedom and victory! Walk beyond just information. Experience the demonstration of God power and presence.
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Step Five—Follow the Pattern
The goal and the glory of every good and true doctor is to have a healed, restored patient. A healed and restored patient influences others to go to the doctor and receive help in their time of need. God’s glory is for us to be healed and restored in every way so that we are a demonstration to others that they, too, can find their help in God.
Taking these steps is the pattern for the rest of our life of walking with God. In this pattern, God cleanses us, fills us, heals us, and renews us into His image. With this, He trains us and sends us out into the world to accomplish His will and His work with His nature within us and His power upon us. He gives us hands on training as did Jesus for his disciples.
God’s goal and pattern for us is that we have His life within us with the fruit of His Spirit being produced in our lives. Also, His goal and pattern for us is that we have the supernatural power of His Spirit upon us to duplicate His life and power in others. Just as Jesus called and trained disciples in this way, so are we to follow Him in calling and training disciples to walk with God.
God is walking on the earth today by His Word and His Spirit, to bring every person into the experience of the life and power of the Lord Jesus Christ. God walks on the earth and works His works through yielded believers. The life and power which He imparts to the believer is to be taken to others so they, too, can believe and walk with God. The life and power of God is to be duplicated in and through the life of every believer. The new believer is to be trained to go and do the same. This pattern is to be duplicated over and over. This is how we walk with God throughout the earth today.
Conclusion
In God’s way of life, we are no longer our own. We exchange the old sinful, powerless man for the new man filled with the life, nature and power of God. With that exchange, we are in God’s hands to do God’s work in life. This is how we walk with God. We walk with God by exchanging our limited life for His unlimited life, our unholy nature for His holy nature, and our powerlessness for His unlimited supernatural power.
In God’s way of life, our identification is with the Lord Jesus Christ. Our identity is with Him as Lord, carrying His “all authority” in daily life (Matthew 28: 18-20). Our identity is with Him as Jesus, who has come in the flesh to lead us in overcoming all things of the flesh and devil. And, our identity is with Him is as Christ, the Spirit-anointed One. The same Spirit of supernatural power that was upon Jesus in the flesh, is the same Spirit of supernatural power that is to be upon us and operate through us now.
We choose to walk or not walk with God. God does not make us walk with Him. But we need to realize, if we are not walking with God, we are essentially on our own by our own choice to do our own thing. We can do our own thing religiously in the name of God, or, we can do our own thing outside the realm of religion. Either way, it is our choice.
Wherever we are in life, God will be there to help us if (a big word) we submit, repent, renounce, and look to Him to receive His life, power, and purpose in our life. He will not force Himself on us. If we refuse and rebel and do our own thing, God will honor our choice; but His heart will be broken for our eternal destruction (Luke 19: 41-44). The way of peace, blessing, abundance, and eternal life is by going God’s way through surrender and total submission to the Lord Jesus Christ.
To walk with God, we need not look to any man or woman in any way. All are tainted. God will use man, but our trust is in God and Him alone—not man. First and last, we look to the Lord Himself. First and last, we look to the Good Father. First and last, we submit all to Him. He will guide us where to go and from whom we can receive. God has only good things for us. Man will lead astray. As we all put God first and trust in Him, then our unity will be in the Lord God Himself through our faith, submission, and obedience to Lord Jesus Christ.
If we keep God first in our life and trust Him, He will take care of us and guide us royally. If we keep Him first in our life and trust Him, we will walk with the Father who is greater than all. If we keep God first in our life and trust Him, we will walk with Jesus, the King of Glory to whom every knee should bow. If we keep Him first in our life and trust Him, we will walk with the Spirit of God’s love, grace and power, all to the eternal glory of the one true God. What a grand privilege to walk with God!
God is the faithful friend. He will walk with us through the fire and through the water. He will protect us. He will heal us. He will bring us into His full and eternal glory. With man, it is impossible, but with God, walking with God, believing with God, yielding all to God, all things are possible.
How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! … Who then can be saved? And Jesus looking upon them saith, with men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible. Then Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee. And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life. But many that are first shall be last; and the last first. Mark 10: 23-31 (italics mine)
About the Author
Jackie L. Calhoun, age 75 at this writing, has loved and shared the Word of God since he was 14. He has held positions as pastor, has held many home meetings, and has done much street ministry throughout his life. He was part of a church planting team in Russia in 1995, and he taught in a Bible school in India in 2003.
Jackie worked in home repair and remodeling and other phases of construction for many years, from which he is now retired. He has four grown children of whom he is very proud.
For many years, Jackie has been active in prison ministry and has written a weekly article for The Southern Standard, a regional newspaper in southwest Arkansas. The articles appear in the newspaper column entitled “Downhome Deliberations.” Jackie maintains a website for his writings at www.gotoallnations.org.
He is currently co-pastoring Lighthouse Church in Benton, Arkansas, with his wife Barbara, who pioneered the church. The church maintains a website at www.lighthousechurchbenton.com and also live-streams their meetings on Facebook.
Other Works
God wants us to win in life. He has given every provision that we might win in every way. This book is written to help us go God’s way so we can experience God’s victory in every way.
God’s answer for us is that we carry God’s perspective in life. As we have the mind of Christ (Spirit-anointed, seated-with-Christ in heavenly-places perspective), we have God’s victory in the midst of life’s events. This book is for you!
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