Devotions

Do you know a father who is no longer speaking to his son? Perhaps they were close once but harsh words were spoken during an argument and they haven’t spoken since. Or perhaps you know a married couple who rarely communicate and do not enjoy each other’s company. These individuals have a relationship but they do not have fellowship with each other.

As Christians we have a relationship with God — he is our Father and we are his children — but that does not mean we necessarily have the kind of fellowship with him that he planned for us. The writings of great Christian leaders from a hundred years ago or earlier place a strong emphasis on two-way fellowship between the Lord and his people — spending time in his presence just listening for his voice.

Our best model for this is Jesus, who “often withdrew to lonely places and prayed” (Luke 5:16). Although the Son of God, Jesus found it necessary to spend time alone with the Father in prayer, to discern what God wanted him to do. He listened to his Father for guidance and for the very subject matter of his teaching: “These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me” (John 14:24).

It was while communing with the Father that Jesus was directed to pick twelve men to be his followers. “Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach” (Mark 3:13-15). We note that the first reason Mark gives for appointing the Twelve was so that they might be with him. When Jesus called someone, fellowship came before ministry.

When we neglect our fellowship with him we become weakened; we have less faith, less grace, and more stress. There is something about being with Jesus, being in God’s presence, that helps us have more peace and joy. 

Jim Cymbala began the Brooklyn Tabernacle with less than twenty members in a small, rundown building in a difficult part of the city. A native of Brooklyn, he is a longtime friend of both David and Gary Wilkerson.

Conversion experiences are often emotional because they are new and incredibly special. How marvelous to be freed from sin and bondage and launched into a whole new life in Christ.

Our early spiritual growth is like a child learning to walk. It is exciting when a baby takes his first steps and there is lots of encouragement and cheering. But soon after he begins to walk, he is no longer the center of attention, and when he begins pulling over plants and making messes all over the house, he is disciplined, albeit gently, and things are not so exciting anymore. 

Your spiritual growth is similar. When you were a babe in the Lord, you felt God giving you special attention and those around you encouraged you tirelessly. However, you are not to remain a child forever. Part of the maturing process involves living by faith and you must learn to stand on God’s Word.

Imagine how lost you would be if your salvation actually rested on your feelings. Paul urges us, “Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead” (Philippians 3:13). You are never to rely on past emotional experiences. What matters today is that you trust his promises.

“By which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (2 Peter 1:4). Peter makes it clear that we obtain Christ’s nature by appropriating God’s covenant promises, and not by any other means. He does bring renewal and fresh anointing to our lives, but we are to maintain a life of faith that he will keep his promises to us.

“Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy … be glory and majesty” (Jude 24-25).

Christians who fail to pray don’t realize the danger they are in. You may argue, “So what if some Christians don’t pray? They are still believers — forgiven and going to heaven.”

Our heavenly Father realizes we live in a busy age, with many demands on our time and energy, and Christians are as caught up in busyness and activities as anyone else. Yet, I cannot believe God takes lightly our rejection of our access to him, which cost his only Son his very life.

It pained the Father to send Jesus to be mocked and crucified so that we would be able to come to him freely. But day after day passes and many of his children do not approach him until they attend church on Sunday. When Adam hid from the Lord in the Garden of Eden, God asked him, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9). Of course, God knew where Adam was but he was really asking Adam why he had neglected having fellowship with him.

Christians who fail to appropriate their access to the Father end up in the condition of the church in Sardis. The Lord instructed John, “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write … ‘I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead’” (Revelation 3:1). Jesus is saying, “You may be a good person who will do anything for anybody, but an element of death has crept into your life because of your negligence. Something of the world has defiled you.”

What is the defilement referred to here? Lack of prayer! The believers in Sardis had not been watching in prayer, waiting on the Lord and seeking him as they once had. They had grown careless but the Lord tells them in Revelation 3:4: “A few of you are worthy and you don’t want to lose my presence.”

Quickly now, go to the secret closet of prayer. He has provided you with access to him and he promises to meet your every need.

When Jesus walked the earth, he made himself accessible to the general population. He taught in synagogues, on hillsides and on boats, healing the sick and performing miracles. He lifted his voice at the feasts, crying, “I am the living water! Come to me and I will satisfy your thirsty soul.” Anyone could draw near to him and be satisfied. But our Lord’s invitation was mostly ignored.

Jesus cried over the people, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37). He was saying to Israel, “I’m here now, available to you. I have told you to come to me for healing and to have your needs met, but you would not come.”

Jesus responded to the people’s rejection of him by declaring, “See! Your house is left to you desolate” (23:38). The word Jesus uses for desolate here signifies loneliness, unfruitfulness, waste. He is saying, “Your church life, your household, your spiritual walk are all going to dry up and die.”

Our heavenly Father cares deeply about all his children’s troubles. Whenever we face hard times, he urges us to draw near, saying, “Come, pour out all your troubles, needs and complaints to me and I will hear your cry and answer.” He longs for us to thirst after him, just as the psalmist said: “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Psalm 42:1-2).

Don’t wait until a crisis arises to approach God. He longs for you to pour out your heart to him in love and adoration on a continual basis.

Most Christians are familiar with this verse: “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). We see here that our high priest, Jesus, feels our sufferings along with us. In other words, the Lord is personally touched by all pain, confusion and despair that we feel. There is nothing we experience that he has not endured also, in one way or another.

Because we have such a great high priest, we are instructed, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (4:16). We are being told, “Your savior knows exactly what you are going through and he knows how to minister his grace to you.”

We have heard most of the theological definitions of grace: unmerited favor; the goodness of God; his special love. But when trials come, we have a choice of how we will react. In the book of Job, we see that Job’s wife became embittered at the unspeakable tragedy they were suffering. She foolishly blamed God and urged Job, “Curse God and die!” (Job 2:9). She was saying, in essence, “Why would the Lord bring down such unthinkable tragedy on this godly family?”

But even in his great grief and anguish, this godly man declared, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15). 

Job was saying, “It doesn’t matter if these boils take me to my grave, I’ll never give up my confidence that he knows what he is doing. Even though I don’t understand anything about any of this, I know God has some eternal purpose.”

Beloved, your present sufferings are producing something precious in your life as you are being formed into a grace giver.