What is fellowship with God?

From the desk of Dr. Robert L. Taylor, Th.D. As Christians, we mature in our relationship with God through fellowship with Him. As Christians, we stay right with God as we continue to pursue intimate fellowship with Him based on His Word. In Scripture, fellowship refers to a shared experience. To have an intimate relationship with God, we need a shared experience with God’s person, and God’s commandments. First, God wants to share His life with our life. God desires to give us a deeper experience of spiritual intimacy. In other words, we can sense the closeness of God in a more real way, not merely in an academic or intellectual way. Our fellowship with God is based on the testimonies of the apostles in Scripture through their teaching and their example. In Scripture, we see the intimate relationship Jesus and His apostles had with one another as Jesus shared His life fully with them. Their stories demonstrate how the only way to keep our relationship right with God is to stay in close fellowship with Him. Second, we require a shared experience with God’s precepts or guidelines found in His Word. Scripture provides a testimony to have a living experience of our fellowship with God. As we learn from Scripture how to deepen our relationship with God, we will have an enhanced experience of His love toward us. Let’s look at an example of this shared experience and it’s results. Jesus says, “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him” (John 14:21). Here Jesus is describing a shared experience with His commandments as well as with Himself. What results from this fellowship is a genuine knowledge of the Father and the Son that  indeed will flow into the person who has and keeps His commandments! And, the longer one fellowships with God in this way, the deeper and richer this knowing of God becomes! Stay tuned for part two of “What is fellowship with God.” Be encouraged!