Walking With God

Transcript S2E1

Walking With God

[00:00]

Hello, I'm Tony Kostas, and welcome to my Led Into Love podcast – our very first episode for 2025!

After just over three months of being online during 2024, I'm very glad to be speaking to you … sharing with you … at the start of another year.

[00:32] 

I want to begin by sharing with you something that was very personal and has never left me … between God and me … when I was just 21. 

Now, that was 62 years ago, and I was attending Bible college during that time.

I was spending some time in prayer one night, just talking to God. And it was one of those times when everything felt so sublime. I really felt so close to God.

I didn't know what was ahead of me. I'd left my job to go to Bible College because I felt God calling me. And so, I asked God during this really sublime time if He would just show me.

I kind of felt like … like I felt close to Him, and I thought, oh, this is a great time to just find out a bit about the future. So, I asked God to show me what was ahead of me for the rest of my life.

You know, I had this lovely anticipation that the … kind of like He'd … He'd move the veil aside and show me the direction of my life and the way my life would go.

And just as clearly as I wanted that from God, and I asked God for that just as clearly in response, I knew what God had to say to me. And what He said to me was this:

He promised me that He would only ever shine a light on the next place that my foot was going to tread. And as He did this, I had this picture of just walking in darkness … walking where I couldn't see ahead. And even when I looked down, I could only see the next place that I was to step.

Well, you know, that was a lovely experience. And I knew from then on, that God was saying “that's all you need to know. Trust me and follow me.”

That was exciting in itself, though it wasn't quite what I thought I'd get when I asked God. But looking back 62 years from then, it's far more thrilling for me to be able to say, that's just how it's been!

[02:53] 

As we spend more time like this together and as I share different things with you, I'll inevitably be relating things that have happened in my long life.

But the one thing I want to say to you is that the thread that has run through my life – not just since that night in 1963, but that's run through my life from that Night when I was 17 at the Billy Graham Crusade, when I didn't even expect that I would be responding to Jesus.

I didn't even know what that meant. But ever since then, I can look back and see the way that God has led me. I never would have guessed the ways He would lead me, the things He would lead me into, the situations, the places, the experiences.

And what I really want to say to you too about that is that if you desire God … if you want your life to be about God … if you want to live for God, do things for God, draw closer to God, whatever age you are. Because believe me, this is even more thrilling for me now. I don't live in the past. I know it's very common for people my age to live in the past – and in sharing this with you, I am not living in the past because I love where I've come to in God. But that hasn't stopped yet! 

But what I also love is that God has led me, as He promised, step-by-step through my life to this point. And God will keep leading me.

[04:28] 

That's not exclusive to me by any means. But the other thing I want to say to you is, it's still very personal to me. And the reason why I say that is that God's way is very consistent – because God is very consistent.

But the way God leads us in our life – if you want Him and you want Him to have his way in your life … and you want Him (as I said in my previous episode) to be glorified in your life … and you want to know him and to love Him, and to make your life about Him, which is what you were created for. There's no other point … no other point in existing … except that then He will make it so personal for you. It's not generic.

[05:18] 

When I became a new Christian at the age of 17 (as I shared in our very first episode) I entered into what I would call a ‘Christian subculture’ that I didn't know existed. I was amongst people who'd been born-again, who knew Jesus like I did. I didn't know that existed – despite growing up in a church and believing in God as best as I could all my life up until then. But I was in a setting where there was this whole Christian ethos … this whole Christian culture.

But the danger with anything like that is that things become very prescriptive. Things become very defined, like a ‘one-size fits all’. 

And you know, the beautiful thing with God is, being a Creator – the Creator – that He is, is that God has the ability to be infinitely creative in everything that He does in God's Creation. You think of the diversity even in the natural Creation.

Everything that God does is so wonderfully specific. The way that He's made the plants, the animals – everything! The animate and inanimate Creation is so full – bursting with creativity! You know, when people talk about being creative … no human being is creative. All they're doing is working within what God has created. Real creativity resides in God, because God is the one who made everything out of nothing, by speaking His word. 

Well, that's a little digression...

[06:54] 

What I want to come back to, is this:

You will recall, I hope, the words of Jesus when He said that God (and He said it to a bunch of people, but He was speaking to them individually) God has the very hairs of your head numbered.

Now we know amazing things like … and I'm sure there's so many other things, but the one that sticks in my mind is that everybody has a distinct fingerprint. I mean, if you look at the patterns on your fingers you think, how many variations could there be?

Well, there are as many variations as there are people. And that's just a little example of the fact that we are not made by a cookie-cutter. We are not made on a production line. We are not mass-produced. We are not machines. We are not something that's made to a pattern. We have the life of God in us and we are made in the image of the living God.

[07:49] 

God wants to have a very personal relationship with you. Even though I've said that already, I want to take that down to this very picture that I have to give you, of the way that God really, really wants to be your God in such a personal way.

When I was a young Christian, people used to often say ‘there is a God-sized hole in every human being’. Like, you know, like a space, a place within you, deep within you, that only God can fill.

And that's true. But can you flip that and let me say to you that there is you-sized hole in the heart of God! 

Now for some Christians that might be offensive. They might say, “Come on!” Like, like: “Are you telling me that God is incomplete without me?” Well, I do. Really. I mean, He is incomplete without you. Does that mean God is not perfect? Isn’t He God who’s got everything? Yes, he has – but I'm talking about the fact that God is love. And because God is love, that is the essence of His being. God is love because He loves. I mean … or maybe I should say that the other way around and say He loves because He is love. But because He is love, He will do everything He can to have you in His life. That's why Jesus died for you.

[09:30] 

Now, again, it's a common thing – has been for I don't know how long – for Christians, for preachers, to say: “If you had been the only person alive on earth, Jesus would have died for you.”

And that's true. But that can almost sound like a throwaway line, or a kind of a sales line, to try and get your attention or to get you to respond to Him.

The fact is, it's true. I can't get my mind around it, so don't worry if you can't. But it is true.

God's love, which was manifested in the way He created Adam in His own image, and the way that He then, from the time of Adam's fall – the way, that God has pursued and pursued and pursued people in His love – and then the time He sent his son Jesus to die because of God's love. 

‘God so loved the world that He gave his only Son’. That's, you know. The world. Don't think of it generically. Don't think of a mass of people. God does not look at this world ever at any point in time and just sees, you know, a huge crowd of people. Just like, you say, “Yeah, okay, so He can see everybody that is alive on earth at any given time.” So, you know, you can’t see them, but imagine what a crowd that would be (and the crowd's getting bigger). But He never sees a crowd. He sees individuals.

[11:03] 

There's a beautiful verse in the Bible that talks about the eyes of God running to and fro around the earth – like, scanning the earth. God's eyes scanning the earth, ‘seeking to show himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are perfect toward Him’. 

In other words, He is looking for people who are looking for Him. He is seeking to respond to people who've got hearts oriented to Him. If you imagine, like if you held a mirror up and angled it just right, so that the sun's rays would hit it, and with the angle that you're holding it the rays would bounce straight back at the sun. Well, that's what God wants. 

Like, God's eyes roam, scanning to and fro throughout the whole earth. And whenever He sees a heart – your heart hopefully – a heart that is angled towards Him, then He receives back from you the response that He has first done in reaching out to you … the way that He touches your heart.

The night He first touched my heart at the age of 17, I didn't understand a thing of what had happened. But that’s when He changed me.

[12:26] 

Now, that's how personal God is with you. He loves you with a desire that you can't comprehend. But He doesn't love you as just another Christian – like, you know, okay, so someone else has been converted. Someone else has believed in Jesus. Great. You know – add them to the bunch. You know, put their name on the list, etc! 

God is not like that. What God is, is a living God who loves you with an everlasting love.

That's been my experience. That is the joy of my life! It was a thrill when I first experienced God like that, but the joy – the greatest joy of my life – is that now I know Him as I've never known Him before.

But as I look back over that path that I've walked with God, the thrilling thing is, He has made it so personal. So specific. He is so personal with me.

[13:22] 

Another thing I can't comprehend – and neither can you – is how can God give all of Himself to me when He's got lots of other people to give Himself to also?

Well, He can only do it because h\He is God – the Creator of the whole universe – who loves you with that everlasting love!

God does not have to split His time and attention and power, and everything else, up into tiny little bits so that everybody who wants a piece of Him gets it. If you give all of yourself to Him, you'll find that He responds with all of Himself.

In fact, as Jesus said to his disciples: “…you have not chosen me. I've chosen you”. He's the one who's moved first … always moves first.

If you respond to God’s reaching out to you, if you respond to God's… when God looks at your heart and He sees “there's someone whose heart I can touch,” and you don't even know that's going to happen. You don't even know what it looks like. And it happens! 

Just take hold of God and give and give and give of yourself to Him. And He will give and give and give of Himself to you. And, that way, He will guide your steps.

[14:41] 

Because, in that word that God spoke to me that night at Bible College – like, basically, He was saying, “Yes, your life is broken up into steps.” That's, like, even the physical – that’s the way God's created us to walk – given us legs, feet, and we take one step at a time.

The old saying, that the longest journey begins with one single step.

God wants to guide you in your life. The Holy Spirit, who is God Himself, not only draws you to God, not only comes and lives inside you, not only fills you if you allow Him to – but then He will lead you, one step at a time. If you will keep surrendering your life to Him. If you will live an abandoned life to Him, one step at a time. You will always know. If you depend on Him. If you don't allow yourself to wander here and wander there, which you can if you want to. You know, you're not compelled to do anything when you belong to God.

[15:56] 

You come to God of your own accord. And you stay with God of your own accord. God will never make you a conscript. He'll never make you a prisoner. God will always honour the fact that He has given you a free will. But His desire – His deepest desire for you – is that you and He will live in the most beautiful love relationship forever and ever … in this life and then in Eternity. 

But in this life – because you have alternatives in this life, which is not Heaven. When you're in Heaven with God … when you're living in Eternity with God … yes, you'll still be giving yourself. Not because you're compelled to, but you won't … you'll have … it'll be settled for you. Like, basically, you've made it with God. You've been faithful to Him and given Him the chance to be faithful to you. And you get to enjoy Him forever and ever and ever. 

But I thank God – for myself, speaking for myself – in this mortal life, that I'm still alive and here. Not because I want to stick around in this life ongoingly. I can't wait to be with Jesus. I can't wait to be with Him, with all of the limitations of this body and this earthly existence gone. But I love the fact that He gives us this time – that He's given me this time – to have the choices, to know what human weakness and temptation, and all of the other things the Bible speaks about – the world, the flesh and the devil – all the things that can target you – you know what it's like, I know what it's like – and gives me the opportunity to choose Him. He's given you the opportunity to choose him, to be led by him, to let him guide you. 

There's all kinds of word pictures used in the Bible. When you think of God holding you by your hand, leading you by His Spirit. You know, one of the scriptures that I love – when Paul wrote, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk in step with the Spirit.” That's beautiful! The Holy Spirit wants you to be so abandoned to Him that He can walk with you. And you will walk with Him – walking in step with Him. Isn't that beautiful?

[18:23] 

So, going back to what happened to me when I was 21, when I wanted God to show me my whole life spread out before me: “What's it going to be about? Where am I going to go? What am I going to do?”

And then Him, so graciously and so lovingly, bring you back and say: “You're going to know one step at a time.”

This is the way for you too. Let Him lead you like that. Let your life be about Him. He is the living God. His power, his love, are incredible. You will lack nothing if you walk with Him. You will know him. You'll know His ways. You'll have the joy and the privilege of looking back as the years go by – and looking back over all the way you’ve come. It'll be like just looking back over a long road that keeps getting longer and longer and longer – because you're going forward – and say: “Isn't that incredible? God brought me all along there!”

And all the time, if your desire is for Him to be glorified, you'll be looking back and saying: “It's amazing that this happened and that happened, and God had His way in my life!”

We don't even know … you don't even know … you don't know how God wants to be glorified in you. You don't know what God's will is, except what He shows you moment by moment, day by day, step by step.

Believe me, we're talking about the living God. This is my God. He is the God. He's the God who wants to know you and to lead you and to guide your steps … every step of the way.