Posts tagged ‘fellowship with god’
All Those Rules and Regulations Speaks to Depravity
We arrive to today realizing that people are simply perverse and stupid. Often animals act more like humans than other humans. That is a sad commentary on society but in many ways it’s true. Why? Because people have set God’s rule aside and adopted their own values based on emotional virtue and political correctness. People today have little problem sleeping around and doing the very things that God warned the Israelites not to do.
Can Christians Take God’s Grace for Granted?
But there is a huge difference between our position or standing before God and our daily walk. It is important to understand that though God imputes Christ’s righteousness to our account (Romans 4:24), the moment we receive salvation, it is still up to us to ensure that we are doing all that we can to walk continuously in fellowship with God. This is one of the reasons Paul tells readers to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). Paul is not saying that we need to work for our salvation. That is not his point at all. Paul is admonishing his readers (and us by extension), to do all that we can to ensure that we remain in fellowship with God! In short, remaining in fellowship with God is our responsibility, not God’s. God will always do everything needed to continue to fellowship with us, but will stop with that fellowship when we sin.
Difficult Roads Often Lead to Beautiful Destinations
Though this life is often filled with storms, difficulties, and problems, the Christian is on the only path that ends well. Christians, due to their faith in God and His extended grace and forgiveness, will end this life with the greatest reward of all. Our path – and only our path – leads to heaven, where God dwells, where we will not only never sin again, but will never even be tempted to sin. The path that we are on is often difficult because it is opposed to the world’s system. That alone creates the drama, the problems, the issues that normally would not be there and will not exist in eternity.
Christian: Do Not Fail to Be in Fellowship with God!
We need to take our relationship with God seriously. We need to enter into fellowship with Him and remain there. It is the only thing that can keep us from falling, recognizing that Christ in us saves us from ourselves. In essence, salvation or eternal life is in knowing God in Christ. As Christians, it is unfortunate that we can do exactly what Adam and Eve did by turning off our relationship with God. We can break that fellowship with God by choosing a path that He does not approve of and when we do, we not only break fellowship, but we sin, and bring tremendous harm into our lives and the lives of those we love.
Portraits in Fellowship, Part 2
We live in a world with a system that has been fully corrupted and crafted by Satan. He has designed this system such that its main goal is to pull people away from God by snaring them with all sorts of baubles and riches, which will ultimately perish. Satan has created this world system, which will one day become a globally united system of governance headed up by his spiritual son (Antichrist), in order to achieve greatness and fulfill his own promises found in Isaiah 14. He seeks to be like the Most High (Isaiah 14:14) and God is allowing him to try to achieve that end. That is his goal and he has designed a world system to take him there. He needs absolute control of this planet and God will allow for a short period of time in the future. That is called Daniel’s 70th week of Daniel 9 (see also Revelation 6 – 18).
Two Most Important Aspects of Fellowship with God
John’s clear point is very obvious. The Christian who claims to have fellowship with God but lives in a way that is contrary to God’s moral law, is not in fellowship with God at all. That person is lying and he is “not practicing the truth.” It is very much like the father and prodigal son of Luke 15. When the son left the father’s presence to enjoy a lifestyle of sin, there was no fellowship with the Father at all. It was only when he returned to the father having decided that his thinking had been wrong that he began to enjoy fellowship with his father. While away spending his money, living riotously, and even feeding pigs, he probably believed he was truly free, but he wasn’t. The most important thing he lacked was fellowship with his own father.
Ecclesiastes and Vanity of Life, Part 8
The purchases and his collections initially gave Solomon joy. However, in the end, it was all vanity, chasing the wind! In short, there was nothing of eternal value in all the things he had amassed for himself. He’s not talking about building the Temple here or doing other things for God. He is talking about the things he pursued for himself, in order to make his own life easier.
Israelites Went In and Out of Fellowship Constantly
Much like the Prodigal Son who deliberately chose to leave his father’s presence to live a life of sin (Luke 15) and had to deal with the consequences of his actions, Christians today make decisions all the time that directly impact whether or not we are and/or remain in fellowship with God. Just as Achan chose to disobey God and take what God warned he should not have taken (to enrich himself), the consequences of his actions resulted in death for Achan, his family, and animals. I don’t take this to mean that Achan lost salvation (if he actually had it). But it is clear that God was much quicker to judge those who fell out of fellowship with Him during the Old Testament times than He does during these times.
Knowing God in 1 John, Part 7
The Prodigal Son lived away from home for many days. He squandered his inheritance with wild living and wild so-called friends. He endeavored to enjoy sin and did not care how it reflected on him, his father, or his upbringing. He was totally interested in doing his own thing. As we know, he eventually came back to his father and his father was waiting for him with open arms. The father was so glad his wayward son had returned. The son had learned some very valuable lessons, chief of which is that his father had always loved him, was always ready to forgive, and always wanted to be in fellowship with his son.
Knowing God in 1 John, Part 6
John is specifically referring to our relationship or our fellowship with God in Christ in this verse. He is talking to people who have salvation and is explaining to them the extremely important principle of walking as Jesus walked. It is not enough to say you are a Christian. Having salvation is clearly very important and something God desires for each and every person (2 Peter 3:9). However, having salvation is really only our starting point. Much of the New Testament epistles are dedicated to encouraging believers to press on, to learn to walk as Jesus walked and to live a life that pleases God. In doing so, we will experience great fellowship with God and enjoy more of His Presence and power in and through our lives.
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