“How To Walk With God”
Session One
Part A
By Nita Johnson
NOLA Revival Services June, 2011
Malachi 2:5; 5My covenant [on My part with Levi] was to give him life and peace, because [on his part] of the [reverent and worshipful] fear with which [the priests] would revere Me and stand in awe of My name.
There is no greater privilege in the entire world than to walk with Jesus. Some people grow up with the sole goal of getting married. Some grow up thinking they want to be a rocket scientist or a doctor, while others may only care about having six or more kids. Some people grow up just wanting to be a preacher.
My little grandson was about four years old—five at the very most—when he came running into my daughter’s room in the middle of the night, crying hysterically. This is the son Ricci calls her passionate one and he came running into the room waking her up through tears as he screamed: “Mommy, mommy, Jesus just came into my room and I have to preach the gospel all over the world! He said He loves the Bible, and it is His Word. He loves it so much and wants everybody in the world to hear His Word and I have to take it all over the world, mommy. I have to preach to the world.” You could see the weight of the world weighing down on his shoulders and written all over his eyes—the most awesome privilege.
We grew up thinking we wanted to do all these different things depending on our gifts and maybe our calling. But really, first and foremost, we were created to learn how to walk with Jesus. That is God’s highest and best—everything else comes after and in some cases you learn to walk with Jesus fulfilling whatever your calling might be, but the primary desire and passion must be to learn to walk with Jesus. When you get saved, you think fulfillment of your calling depends on who you were and what you were like when you got saved. Some people get saved and think, “How could God do this for such a wretch like me?” I personally was not in that category. When I got saved, I thought that God had gotten himself a pretty good deal, so needless to say, I had a lot of humbling I had to go through. But, because of the way He saved me, every minute of every day I have experienced the one desire, the one passion, the one purpose and that is – to know Him. I am in the ministry today because I desire to know Jesus. Some people are in the ministry because they feel called and I am called—it is not that I’m not—but the thing that keeps me moving forward is my Savior is the pursuit after the knowledge of my Lord.
What is the purpose of anything in our lives? If you have children—it is to learn Jesus. If you have a husband or wife—it is to learn Jesus. Whatever you do, whatever you are, whatever your quest in life is, God has put that in your heart so that you can desire to learn Jesus in that place.
Let us pray a minute. Lord Jesus, there is nothing in this life that is more wonderful than the knowledge of You: learning the many-sided wisdom of God and the panoramic beauty of your many faces. You are so vast, great and wonderful that it will take us eternity to learn You, but there is an allotment of the knowledge of God that is given to every man in this life. As gold is refined—refined in a moment when we least expect it—and so it bears the image of the Goldsmith. To know You and the wonders of Your Person, Jesus! How Great Thou art! Help us to partake of the banquet you have laid before us in, Your precious name.
Malachi 2:5 5My covenant [on My part with Levi] was to give him life and peace, because [on his part] of the [reverent and worshipful] fear with which [the priests] would revere Me and stand in awe of My name. 6The law of truth was in [Levi's] mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips; he walked with Me in peace and uprightness and turned many away from iniquity.
This scripture says so little and yet so much. I do not know whether you have experienced this or not, but when you got saved or maybe even filled with the Holy Spirit, did you notice that the world changed? I can remember when I was a child, there was nothing I loved more than to be in nature. So behind our sub-division there was this huge forest and any time I possibly could I would go into the forest and spend as much time as I could in the woods. I just loved being in nature.
My grandmother had a house on a private lake and several times a year my parents would take us to grandma’s lake and I would love to sit on the steps that overlooked the lake while I drew. Not that I am an artist, but I would draw anything I saw on and around the lake and just soak it up. But as you get older, you get busy raising children and so on—you know how it goes right? But I can remember what happened when I got saved. Immediately, nature came back to the forefront. I can remember walking out into the park and it was like every blade of grass was so beautiful. Every petal of every flower was so beautiful. Every feather of every bird was so beautiful—it was like I had never seen nature before and it was so beautiful. Did you go through that? You just begin to see the world through different eyes—almost as if you are seeing the glory of the Lord on every particle of nature and you realize new Life has come in. You see people through different eyes—it seemed like all of a sudden everyone in your world changed, even if just for a few days. And then you realize Life came in.
Maybe some of you got saved so young you do not remember any of this. Is that the problem? You find yourself filled with joy and everything makes you happy. Even the bad stuff does not bother you; it is just so great to be saved. We are called to be kings and priests of the most high God. My covenant on my part with Levi was to give him life; to give him life and to give you life. But this Life was unlike any other life. Back there in the beginning your only hope was that this joy would go on one more day and you would make it to heaven and that was the great hope. You did not sit around wanting to see Jesus or have angelic visitations. You are just wanting to make heaven and wondering why you did not get saved twenty years ago. Life had come in and this new life changed you immediately. You were so glad you found it and you became a priest, but you did not know it then. That was not one of the things you sat around and meditated on—you did not even think about it. You did not know you were a priest, you just knew that new life had come in. Now, when you say the name of Jesus, it has meaning.
After you got saved, do you remember hearing all of the Christmas songs and thinking, now I finally know that that means? I heard, ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem,’ and thought: Oh, there really is a place. I went through all of that. I can remember the day I had been asked to speak at a women’s conference about 150 miles up the road from where I lived. On the way home I was worshipping the Lord and had a vision. In the vision I saw Jesus walk out of His tomb. I burst into tears and said, “You are alive!” I kept saying this over and over because at that moment it was not something I just took by faith, at that moment, I saw Him! He is living! It’s one thing to hear about it, but when He makes it real for you, however He chooses to do that, it changes everything. I am crying happy tears because now I am worshipping a living Christ. His life is now real to me. It seems so silly to say thirty years later, but at that time, it was a real revelation.
Do you remember when it became real to you? How wonderful it was to know that He is ever living. He is alive and because He is alive, that life is in me. My covenant with you on My part is to give you life and peace. What is the abundant life? It is there for us to get in touch with and to walk in the fullness of it, but have you ever gone through a bunch of trials? In the midst of abundant trials, have you ever felt like: Is this really all Christianity is about, Lord? I still felt that way, even with the many times I had seen Jesus, had been taken to heaven or had been surprised by an angel. Can you imagine someone like that with those experiences saying that to the Lord?—How arrogant. And I meant it with all my heart because the trials just seemed so big and you can get overwhelmed and forget that the life is within. The sustaining life is within and you do not understand He is trying to press you so that this life will flow through you.
To be continued next week…
In His Amazing Love,
Nita Johnson
