I had a conversation with a fellow believer awhile ago now, in which he said, "I walk with Jesus everyday!" I asked him what he meant, exactly. He thought for a moment and then answered, "I pray, read my Bible, go to church." Was this all? I pressed him for more. He seemed baffled that I wasn't satisfied with his answer and asked, "Isn't this what walking with Jesus is?" I was astonished by his remark and replied that it wasn't. This fellow believer was both surprised by my response and annoyed. He had been a believer for some time and had led Bible studies in the church! It wasn't possible he could have mistaken the shape of his faith so badly and said so. I opened my Bible and showed him that there was much, much more to walking with God than the "Big Three" (prayer, Bible reading, and church-going).
Fellowship: Intimate Communion with God.
When a person is saved, they enter into a relationship with God. They are adopted by God into His family as one of His children. But the forging of this relational link is only the beginning of what God intends in being our Heavenly Father. He wants intimate communion - fellowship - with us, not merely a relational link.
1 Corinthians 1:9
9 God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
2 Corinthians 13:14
14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.
1 John 1:3
3 what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.
This is emphasized in Christ's vine analogy in John 15:4-5; pictured in his parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32; described in Paul's co-laboring with God in 1 Corinthians 3:9; in the believer's sharing in the sufferings of Christ described in Philippians 3:10; in the believer being made a "temple" of the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 6:19, and so on. Even the use of the familial terms of "Father" and "children" in describing the relationship between us and our Creator implies intimacy.
What does this "fellowship" look like, then? God is a Spirit. We can't interact with him as we do one another, hearing, seeing, touching, and (sometimes) smelling one another as we do. God is intangible, immaterial, seen by no man at any time (1 John 4:12). How, then, can we enjoy intimate communion with Him? Well, what does the Bible say?
It says we will be convicted by God's Spirit (John 16:8). And, since we are such sinful creatures this will be a very common, daily - even hourly - experience. The Spirit will get right into the innermost recesses of our lives, prodding and poking around and cleaning us up in the most intimate, secret places of our lives - if we'll let him.
The Holy Spirit will also make us sensitive to sin. This is just part of his convicting work. The sin we once found enjoyable and with which we were quite comfortable will begin to feel wrong, off, foul. We'll sense it ruins things between us and God, halting our fellowship with Him. But we won't merely feel guilty and ashamed if its the conviction of the Spirit we are feeling; we will find ourselves propelled toward God in repentance and confession of our sin, not away from Him, like Adam and Eve in Eden. The Spirit's convicting work is a purifying, restoring one, not an effort intended to fracture our fellowship with God.
We are told in Scripture that the Spirit also teaches us (John 14:26; 1 John 2:27), disciplines us (Hebrews 12:5-11), strengthens us (Ephesians 3:16; Romans 8:13; Philippians 2:13; 2 Timothy 1:7), comforts us (2 Corinthians 1:3-4), and forms in us divine "fruit" (Galatians 5:22-23) - among other things.
The idea that we sort of muddle through, maintaining spiritual disciplines as best we can, toughing it out 'til we die, never expecting any sort of actual experience of God this side of the grave, is NOT biblical.
I understand that Christians have gone far too far in the other direction, becoming highly sensual, chasing after and manufacturing wild "experiences" of God, hyping their emotions to a frenzy and opening themselves to demonic practices and influence. I am in no way endorsing this sort of "experience" of God. Reacting to this craziness by swinging to an utterly academic, distant, moralistic version of the faith is not the answer, however. Both extremes lead away from God.
Paul wrote of an incredibly intimate communion with God and Christ through the Spirit:
Philippians 1:21
21 For to me to live is Christ...
Colossians 3:3-4
3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.
Are you walking with Jesus? Are you experiencing fellowship with him through the Spirit? You can. I pray you will.
Fellowship: Intimate Communion with God.
When a person is saved, they enter into a relationship with God. They are adopted by God into His family as one of His children. But the forging of this relational link is only the beginning of what God intends in being our Heavenly Father. He wants intimate communion - fellowship - with us, not merely a relational link.
1 Corinthians 1:9
9 God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
2 Corinthians 13:14
14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.
1 John 1:3
3 what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.
This is emphasized in Christ's vine analogy in John 15:4-5; pictured in his parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32; described in Paul's co-laboring with God in 1 Corinthians 3:9; in the believer's sharing in the sufferings of Christ described in Philippians 3:10; in the believer being made a "temple" of the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 6:19, and so on. Even the use of the familial terms of "Father" and "children" in describing the relationship between us and our Creator implies intimacy.
What does this "fellowship" look like, then? God is a Spirit. We can't interact with him as we do one another, hearing, seeing, touching, and (sometimes) smelling one another as we do. God is intangible, immaterial, seen by no man at any time (1 John 4:12). How, then, can we enjoy intimate communion with Him? Well, what does the Bible say?
It says we will be convicted by God's Spirit (John 16:8). And, since we are such sinful creatures this will be a very common, daily - even hourly - experience. The Spirit will get right into the innermost recesses of our lives, prodding and poking around and cleaning us up in the most intimate, secret places of our lives - if we'll let him.
The Holy Spirit will also make us sensitive to sin. This is just part of his convicting work. The sin we once found enjoyable and with which we were quite comfortable will begin to feel wrong, off, foul. We'll sense it ruins things between us and God, halting our fellowship with Him. But we won't merely feel guilty and ashamed if its the conviction of the Spirit we are feeling; we will find ourselves propelled toward God in repentance and confession of our sin, not away from Him, like Adam and Eve in Eden. The Spirit's convicting work is a purifying, restoring one, not an effort intended to fracture our fellowship with God.
We are told in Scripture that the Spirit also teaches us (John 14:26; 1 John 2:27), disciplines us (Hebrews 12:5-11), strengthens us (Ephesians 3:16; Romans 8:13; Philippians 2:13; 2 Timothy 1:7), comforts us (2 Corinthians 1:3-4), and forms in us divine "fruit" (Galatians 5:22-23) - among other things.
The idea that we sort of muddle through, maintaining spiritual disciplines as best we can, toughing it out 'til we die, never expecting any sort of actual experience of God this side of the grave, is NOT biblical.
I understand that Christians have gone far too far in the other direction, becoming highly sensual, chasing after and manufacturing wild "experiences" of God, hyping their emotions to a frenzy and opening themselves to demonic practices and influence. I am in no way endorsing this sort of "experience" of God. Reacting to this craziness by swinging to an utterly academic, distant, moralistic version of the faith is not the answer, however. Both extremes lead away from God.
Paul wrote of an incredibly intimate communion with God and Christ through the Spirit:
Philippians 1:21
21 For to me to live is Christ...
Colossians 3:3-4
3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.
Are you walking with Jesus? Are you experiencing fellowship with him through the Spirit? You can. I pray you will.
