There are ten responses to this question, given us in verses 2-5. Does that not show how vital a question this is in verse 1.

We shall look at each of the elements in this answer.

1. We are firstly given a direction as to our walk. How important it is. We find this word used in the very early part of the Bible. Gen 2:14. The word is translated ‘goeth’. It refers to the movement and motion of the river Hiddekel which flowed out of the Garden of Eden and it carried a little something of the Garden with it!

Each one of us follows a course during our life, just like a river. A river can water and nourish and bring good or it can flood and swamp and do much harm.

So it is with us!

2. If we are to enjoy to presence of the Lord we must ‘walk’ uprightly. The word ‘uprightly’ first appears in Genesis 6:9. “Noah was a just man and perfect (upright) in his generations, and Noah walked with God.” Here is a man enjoying the company of the Lord and that stemmed from his uprightness, his ‘perfection’. That does not mean he was without sin but rather that he was ‘spiritually healthy’. He was without moral blemishes. He was, as we might say, ‘straight up and down’ - ‘uprightly’.

Notice that Noah owed his ‘uprightness’ to the grace of God. “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD,” Genesis 6:8. His holiness was not of himself. It sprang from the workings of God’s grace in his soul. He had the life of God within him. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new,” 2 Cors 5:17. That is what the Saviour was referring to when He said: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” John 3:3. Noah was ‘born again’, he had ‘life from above’.

3. Such a walk will be marked by works of righteousness. “He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness.” The first use of this word is linked to God ‘working’. “The place, O LORD, which thou hast made (worketh) for thee to dwell in, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established,” Exodus 15:17. The holy person walks with the Lord and engages in holy labour just like Him. “For we are labourers together with God,” 1 Corinthians 3:9.