I have had a particularly burn to re-encourage my fellow believers, and those who don’t know God yet, all in the area of relationship with God. I am going to do a short series of posts to encourage us in this area and then to give some practical tips on our daily relationship with the Lord. I hope this is encouraging, uplifting, and can help in some ways!
The story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation is the story of God coming to dwell with His people. The fellowship was lost in the beginning due to sin, and the story of human history has been God working through various means to bring back this original state of God with man. Adam was a high priest charged with stewarding the place where God would come and dwell with humanity. He was to enjoy this place in the garden where God would come down to fellowship, and he was to guard it from outside darkness that could break this fellowship. However, Adam not only failed to keep the tempter out, but then embraced what the tempter offered, resulting in a breaking of the fellowship he enjoyed with God. Look at the pain this loss of fellowship brought next. The same is true for us, if we don’t go to the place of enjoying fellowship with God, or if we embrace things that would hinder this fellowship, we are left without the thing needed most for life, union with the Father and a daily refilling with His Spirit.
But it is God’s heart to restore this place of “God with man”, and this is our glorious future as believers in Jesus who wait for and long for His glorious return. But until the “ocean of fellowship” comes at His return, let’s be a people who go continuously to the “well of fellowship” with God, and who drink deep of the living waters found there. This is not only the place of honoring God; this is not only the place of true lasting joy and peace; this is not only the place of receiving strength from the Lord; but this place of intimate fellowship with God creates a different kind of Christian, one that is able to accurately “re-present” the Father to the world around us, a world who so desperately needs to see what He’s actually like!
This word, “re-present” was given to me during my times of prayer prior to going to Ireland this year in February. Our Father has been represented wrongly, so we want to “re-present” Him. I was so encouraged when this word was picked up and used by the other leaders there in Ireland who’s churches we shared with! It is an obvious need in their nation and mine, where the past generations represented God inaccurately. There will always be people who reject God and the Gospel of Jesus, but let’s not let the reason they reject Him be due to an inaccurate representation of Him. What would cause us to misrepresent the Father? The answer: not knowing the Father. So Let’s be a people who abide in His presence daily in order to know Him more and love Him more so we can make Him more known. To know the Father will be the topic of my next blog post.
-“”The priests did not say, ‘Where is the LORD?’ And those who handle the law did not know Me; The rulers also transgressed against Me Jeremiah 2:8 NASB
-“When all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would arise and worship, each at the entrance of his tent. Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses returned to the camp, his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.”Exodus 33:10-11 NASB