How can i fellowship with god

For example, If I am good enough or in many religious groups, then God will be pleased by what I have done and love me and make me His friend. The Bible makes it very clear that there is no other way to be in fellowship but through Jesus. Plain and simply, we cannot have fellowship with God if we reject His Son.

Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Our source for fellowship with God is His Word.

God is not distant, He is with us and for all who believe, in us. He is a relational God who is calling you to Himself so that through fellowship with God, as you read and study the Bible, you will have peace that passes all understanding.

God wants what is best for us, all the time. David picked up on this also in Psalm How can a young man cleanse his way?

By taking heed according to Your word. Once we acknowledge our sin we receive cleansing through the blood of Jesus Christ. This results in continued fellowship with the brethren and of course with God.

People working with drug addicts or alcoholics know that before they can help them, they must acknowledge their addiction. You can't help someone who denies they have a problem! John deals with the procedure for spiritual cleansing. In verse 7.

But verse 9 says that we must confess our sin for this to happen. Is confession the same as repentance? I don't believe it is. Repentance means to turn around and walk the other way. This takes place at salvation, when we repent of our old life and believe in Jesus Christ. Repentance is a one time experience, whilst confession is needed continually! A good example would be Christ washing the disciples feet.

Peter did not want the Lord to wash His feet. Then Jesus replied if I don't wash your feet, then you have no part with Me. So Peter went to the other extreme and asked for a complete bath. But Christ explained that they had been washed when they believed in Him. That original washing took place when they followed Christ. All that they needed now was to remove the sin that had smeared them since then. Their sin was a result of living in a sinful world with a sinful nature still present. This is just as true today.

Once someone believes in Christ they are made clean. But they will need to confess their sin along the way to wash their feet and remain in fellowship with God. The word confess literally means " to say the same thing as. We must acknowledge that what God says is true. We need to be specific about our sins and own up to them rather than making excuses for them. Adam and Eve tried to blame others for their sin and God did not accept their excuses.

Only when we confess our sins is He faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That is in the present tense, He keeps on cleansing us from all sin! When we confess our sins, God forgives us of our guilt and cleanses our impurity caused by it.

But how does God forgive us when we have done these sins. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world. John's desire was that believers might not sin and he encouraged them in this.

But John realised that even though this was his desire and what the Ephesians should also desire, they would in fact sin. So he assures them that they have an advocate , a representative in heaven who will defend their case, once they have confessed their sin. Today many criminals are prosecuted for shocking crimes.

To our horror many of these get off the charges. How do they do this? They pay a lot of money to a crooked lawyer who finds a loophole in the law. They get off on a technicality even though everyone knows that they are guilty. But God's justice doesn't work this way. He doesn't deny our sins, but simply says that the punishment for these sins has been paid for by someone else. And God is satisfied. The punishment that we should have received for our sin has been paid in full.

The Bible says this in Romans For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, But Christ has taken the punishment for our sin. On the cross Christ cried out tetalisti , it is finished, paid in full! Jesus Christ is Himself the propitiation for our sins and also for those of the whole world.

Christ's sacrifice on the cross is sufficient for the sins of the world. But only those who believe in Him will in fact have their sins forgiven.

Martin Luther had a dream one night in which he stood before God. Satan was there to accuse Luther. When the books were opened the accuser pointed to sin after sin in his life. Luther despaired. Then he remembered the cross and, turning to the devil, he quoted 1 John , " The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. Because of Jesus Christ, sinners can be forgiven and stand before a holy God. Jesus Christ has paid the debt of our sin on the cross. Therefore we are free from the debt we once owed.

The charges have been dealt with and God has declared us righteous. If we don't confess our sins God will not forgive them or cleanse us! But He doesn't allow us to stay in that condition for long. He leads us to repentance by,. Conviction - God convicts us through a guilty conscience. Our conscience will either clear us of our actions or condemn us.

If it condemns us then we have sin between us and God. We should be aware of His presence with us everywhere and at all times, and make Him know He is wanted. He must never be ignored or forgotten. We shall obtain a better understanding of our God Phil. We shall develop a greater love for our Lord 1 Jn. Our faith will increase Jn. We shall receive spiritual strength to successfully combat the devil 1 Jn. We shall discover a courage we previously did not have Acts ; 1 Jn.

We shall reflect the character of Christ in our daily lives Phil. We shall find comfort and rest in the presence of the Lord, even in times of spiritual conflict. Fellowship with Christ makes life worth living. He comes out of eternity, and you and I find ourselves in this great universe.

The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. John That is the beginning which is the beginning, because you and I can go back in our thinking as far as we want to.

You can move creation back billions and billions of years and put down your pegs, and wherever you put them down He comes out of eternity past, the Ancient of Days, to meet you. He moves out of eternity to meet you anywhere you want to go into eternity past. He is the God of eternity. That is the incarnation. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness….

I listened to Him, and I saw Him. The question of the Gnostics was not so much about the deity of Christ as about the humanity of Christ. They were sure of the deity of the Lord Jesus, but they questioned when He became God and when He deleted it. The theater is a place where you sit and look, not just with a passing glance but with a steady gaze for a couple of hours.

John was saying that they not only saw Him, but they gazed upon Him. We know who He was. He is the God-man, the theanthropic Person who is unique in the history of this world. In our day we cannot see Him with our physical eyes, but we can see Him with the eye of faith.

We today are walking by faith, and the Lord Jesus Christ can be made as real to us as He was to Thomas. During the wilderness march, the people who had been bitten by serpents and were in need of healing were told to look to a brass serpent which had been lifted up on a pole. John applied that to the Lord Jesus and said that we are to look to Him in faith for salvation.

After we have done that, we are to gaze upon Him. To look saves; to gaze sanctifies. Many of us need to do more than simply look to Him for salvation. We need to spend time gazing upon Him with the eye of faith. Because I was a pastor a long time, I am a little weary of methods, and I am a little weary of gimmicks. Somebody always comes along with a new approach to something. John said that they did more than merely gaze on Jesus from a distance; they handled Him.

I think they did. Our hands have handled of the Word of life. For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us. He was eternal life — God, the Ancient of Days — who came down and was robed in the flesh of our humanity that He might not only reveal God but also redeem man.

What comes next is quite wonderful. John tells us that we can have fellowship with God! One of the most glorious prospects before us today is that we can have fellowship with the Father, with the Son, and with one another. Fellowship, koinonia in the Greek, is a unique word. To do this, we must know the Lord Jesus — not only know about Him, but know Him as our personal Savior.

In our day we have lost the true meaning of the word fellowship, but let me give you an illustration of one place where the word is used correctly. I had the privilege of being at Oxford University as a tourist and seeing the different schools that comprise the university. I visited one school which specialized in Shakespeare. Now suppose you wanted to know all about Shakespeare so that you could teach that subject.

You would go to Oxford University and attend the particular school specializing in that subject. When you ate, you would sit down at the board, and there you would meet others who were studying Shakespeare, and you would meet the professors who did the teaching. You would hear them all talking about Shakespeare in a way you had never heard before. For instance, in the play Romeo and Juliet most of us think that Juliet was the only girl Romeo courted. You would hear many things that would alert you to the fact that you had a lot to learn about Shakespeare.

So you would begin to study and pull books off the shelf in the library and go to the lectures. After you had been at the school for two or three years, they would make you a fellow. Then when you would go in and sit at the board with the other students and professors, you would join right in with them as they talked about the sonnets of Shakespeare. You would have fellowship with them, sharing the things of Shakespeare.

Now fellowship for the believer means that we meet and share the things of Christ. Koinonia sometimes refers to the act of fellowship — the communion service in a church is an act of fellowship, giving is an act of fellowship, and praying is an act of fellowship. My friend, the ultimate aim in preaching is that, through conviction and repentance, men and women might come to salvation and that it might bring great joy to their hearts, like the Ethiopian eunuch who came to know Christ with the help of Philip.

Because he had come to know Christ. I have noticed that there is a sadness among believers today. It ought not to be there, friend. There ought to be joy. You know, the trouble is that the devil has made the world outside believe that if you want to have a boring time, the thing to do is to go to a church service. If you want to know the truth, some of them are that way. But actually, going to church or to a Bible conference ought to be a time of great joy in our hearts. When you share the things of Christ and have fellowship, there ought to be real joy.

It can come only through fellowship with Him. John said he wrote these things so that we can have fellowship and so that our joy might be full and our joy would naturally be full if we could have fellowship with God. However, there is a hurdle to get over, which every child of God recognizes. The very possibility of man having fellowship with God is one of the most glorious prospects that come to us, but immediately our hopes are dashed when we face up to this dilemma:. This, then, is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

God is light, which means He is holy. God is love and He is life, but first of all God is light — holy. Light speaks of the glory of God, the glory of this universe, and the radiance, beauty, and wonder of it all. Light also reveals flaws and impurities, so it speaks of the purity of God.

God is light; He is holy. Now we are presented with this dilemma. I am a little creature down here on earth filled with sin.