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Central to the teaching of the Bible is the concept of fellowship between God and man. Under the Old Covenant they had a relationship with God that was based upon symbolism only. Under the New Covenant we have the reality.
..."If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him." (John 14:23)
We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:3)
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! (1 John 3:1)
No longer will a man teach his neighbour, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. (Heb. 8:11)
...and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith,... (Heb. 10:21-22)
It now starts to become clear to us that the concept of a relationship with God is not a side issue or an addendum to our lives. It is central to the eternal purpose of God. If we are not, at the core of our being, founded securely upon a vital relationship with our heavenly Father, then we have nothing of lasting value.
Why is this? The answer is that God is love (1 John 4:8), and love not only needs someone to love but can only be truly satisfied by the response of love from the beloved. Love cannot exist in a vacuum.
It is difficult for us to grasp at first, and harder to say, that God needs our love. It was to satisfy the infinite love of his infinite heart that man was created in the first place. It was the longing of love that drove Jesus to the Cross so that fallen man could be redeemed and brought back into fellowship. We should take the shoes from off our feet and tread carefully here for we are on holy ground.
Bringing this back to ourselves, let us begin to comprehend that the Lord longs for our love, our fellowship and a mature response to his love. To this end he ceaselessly works to build the nature and character of Christ into us. He does this so that we will be enabled to walk in a constantly developing love relationship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. Nothing less will satisfy the longings of his loving heart. To this end were we born.
But even as we stand in awe and wonder, it is perfectly reasonable for us to ask, "What does all this mean? What really is a relationship with God or a relationship with anyone for that matter?"
Let us look at some of the elements which characterise a satisfying relationship between two individuals.
All of the above elements exist in our relationship with God. He knows and understands us far better than we ever know ourselves. He not only is aware of our most private thoughts but be also understands our deepest motives.
For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. (Heb. 4:12-13)
O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.
You know where I sit and where I rise you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. (Ps. 139:1-4)
...for the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. (1 Chron. 28:9)
All a man’s ways seem innocent to him,
but motives are weighed by the LORD. (Prov. 16:2)
Now God is calling us to be filled with "the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding" so that we can know his thoughts and understand his motivation. The deeper our understanding of his purpose, the more real and fruitful does our relationship with him become.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them! (Ps. 138:17)
...And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Eph. 3:17-19)
As our mutual understanding grows so does the depth of our love relationship.
My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Col 2:2-3)
This relationship also, is based upon communication and response. It is the will of God to hear and answer prayer. The Scripture instructs and encourages us to pray.
"If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." (Matt. 21:22)
"But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (Matt. 6:6)
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. (Eph. 6:18)
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. (Rom. 12:12)
Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. (Col. 4:2)
It must be said, of course, that prayer is not always a simple matter of asking and receiving. There are times when prayer seems to remain unanswered. There are a number of reasons for this, and it is wise for us to consider them carefully.
Firstly, prayer is, at times, a spiritual battle.
Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you,... (Col. 4:12)
The story is told of Daniel who, on one occasion, fasted and prayed for three weeks before an answer finally arrived. When the answer did arrive, an angel appeared to him and said:
..."Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia." (Dan. 10:12-13)
The prince of the Persian kingdom being referred to here was one of the spiritual powers and authorities which Paul wrote about in Ephesians.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Eph. 6:12)
In this particular instance, the angel assigned to bring the response to Daniel’s prayer had to run the gauntlet of the spiritual forces which ruled the region. The battle delayed him for three weeks and he was finally able to break through only with the help of the Archangel Michael. It is against forces such as these that we wrestle in prayer.
The second reason for unanswered prayer has to do with our spiritual maturity.
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. (James 4:1-3)
While this biting indictment may or may not apply directly to us, the principle is crystal clear. Their spiritual immaturity and worldliness, as evidenced by their quarrelling, backbiting and greed, directly resulted in their prayers remaining unanswered.
In some cases, the request may simply be rejected. In other cases, however, God may well grant our request, but in the process brings about a change within us. In this way, the prayer may well be answered in a manner we never dreamed of.
Thirdly, however, is an even more serious matter. One of the curses pronounced upon a broken covenant was as follows:
The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. The LORD will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed. (Deut. 28:23-24)
When Israel defiled the covenant which they had with the Lord, their land was devastated by drought, famine and the ravages of surrounding armies. Even worse was that the Lord their God appeared to be deaf to their cries of anguish.
We live in an age where the church has come under the curse of a broken covenant, the consequences of which is a devastating spiritual drought. It is no good putting on a brave face, "whistling past the graveyard" and pretending all is well. All who seek the Lord with a sincere heart feel the arid dryness of this barren spiritual wilderness to which the church has consigned itself.
It is far better to face the situation squarely and recognise that despite all of this we can still seek and find the Lord our Saviour who is full of grace and mercy. The task may be more difficult than it should be, but if we know where we are starting from, then it is possible to reach the goal.
For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. (2 Chron. 16:9)
So, with all these possibilities, how do we tell the difference?
If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. (James 1:5)
The answer is, of course, that this is something that cannot be taught by man but can only be learnt from the Lord himself. It is through the closeness of our relationship with God, with his Son, Jesus Christ, and with the Holy Spirit that this wisdom, insight and knowledge flows.
But this communication is meant to be two-way. While God is hearing our requests we are meant to be listening and responding to his. In other words, to make this relationship complete we are to learn to know and to respond to the prompting and leading of the Holy Spirit.
...because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. (Rom. 8:14)
Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. (Gal. 5:25)
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. (Rom. 8:26)
One of the most prominent features of the book of Acts is the sensitivity to the commands and promptings of the Holy Spirit displayed by those early disciples. These men and women knew the voice of the Spirit and obeyed it unquestioningly and without hesitation.
Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Go south to the road - the desert road - that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." (Acts 8:26)
Without asking the whys and wherefores, Philip set out to do just as he had been commanded. Before long he was preaching the Gospel to an Ethiopian eunuch who was an important official in the court of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, finally baptising him in water by the roadside.
Likewise we see that Paul and his companions had their missionary journeys directed by the Holy Spirit.
Paul and his companions travelled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. (Acts 16:6-7)
Again, when a dispute arose about the circumcision of Gentile believers, the apostles and elders met in Jerusalem to consider the matter. The result of this was a letter which said in part:
It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements:... (Acts 15:28)
It was not only the leaders of the church who received and obeyed commands given them by the Holy Spirit. In Damascus was a man named Ananias who was simply described as "a disciple." When Saul (later Paul) arrived in Damascus, having been struck blind on the way, God spoke to Ananias, this time by a vision, and told him to go and place his hands on Saul so that Saul could regain his sight and commence his new life in Christ (Acts 9:10-19).
The common theme here is that these Christians were sensitive to pressures placed upon them by the Holy Spirit and, without hesitation responded to them. At times they were given specific verbal instructions (audible or not) and they obeyed them. They had a relationship with God that had open channels of communication that went in both directions.
Thus it is the purpose of God to develop within us the ability to know the voice of the Spirit, in whatever form it may come to us, and to be taught by him to respond unhesitatingly to his leading and prompting.
To do this we need to be able to distinguish between that which comes to us from the Holy Spirit and "voices" that arise from other sources both within us and in the air around us. This requires a brokenness of spirit and is something that we can only learn from the Lord himself (James 1:5).
Therefore, from amongst all the static that surrounds us, we are to learn to recognise the voice of the Holy Spirit and respond in the appropriate manner. He is our teacher and our infallible guide as we follow him along this path.
Thus will the Holy Spirit usher us into a relationship with God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, in which communications flow in both directions, where each is able to listen to and respond to the other and which is, as a consequence, a relationship that is ever changing and growing.
Finally, our relationship with God will experience strain from time to time. There will be times when God is grieved with us either because we have sinned or, equally likely, because we have failed to respond to his urging to "come up higher."
There will be times also, if we are honest with ourselves, when we are upset by something God does or allows to happen, or by his seeming failure to respond to our urgings.
In either case the relationship suffers strain and we lose the sense of his presence and our confidence and certainty. In other words we walk in darkness. At this time our fellowship with God is broken, although our basic relationship remains intact.
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. (1 John 1:5-6)
We quickly learn, of course, that God’s grievances are always justified and ours are not. We also quickly learn that God disciplines us in love, always with our best interests and his great eternal objectives in mind.
"Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline." (Rev. 3:19)
"My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son." (Heb. 12:5-6)
Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (Heb. 12:10-11)
Blessed is the man you discipline, O LORD, the man you teach from your law;... (Ps. 94:12)
Either way the relationship may be healed by an acknowledgement of our failure.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense - Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. (1 John 2:1)
In all the ebb and flow of our relationship with our heavenly Father, it is undergirded at all times by our great High Priest who took his own blood into the heavenly Holy of Holies and obtained eternal redemption for us. It is there that he lives forever to make intercession for us.
When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! (Heb. 9:11-14)
Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. (Heb. 7:25)
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