September 1
“’If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him.’” (John 14:23)
“What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, that you also may have fellowship with us; and indeed, our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.” (1 John 1:3)
Continuing on with other transformations that each one of us needs to ask the Lord to complete in us is one of fellowship. This is a huge issue that I could spend several days on just in itself. God offers to us His fellowship! This is unimaginable, if we really think it through. I think that as Christians we think lightly of it, and we take it for granted. We take GOD for granted, and most of us are oblivious to the glorious fellowship that He offers to each one who is a believer in Christ.
| FROM Conformed to the World | TO Transformed in Christ |
| 6. Seeking out fellowship with demons | 6. Seeking out fellowship with God |
Although I am speaking from my own experience, I think I can say that fellowship with God, walking with God, being pleasing to God in all aspects of our thoughts, words, and deeds, is not high on many of our priority lists. I just don’t hear Christians talking about this, about how to get closer to Christ and be filled with the Spirit more often. I don’t hear Christians exhorting one another about having intimacy with Christ and the things they are doing to experience and abide in Him and serve Him in greater ways. Maybe I attend the wrong churches, but continual fellowship with Him and being filled by Him is not something that I hear emphasized. Yet that I believe is what we should strive for.
There is talk about serving Christ and obeying Christ, but not much on fellowship with Him, walking in regular communication with Him, through the Spirit. It is staggering to think that God has offered Himself to us, His presence, His guidance, and His power, to be enjoyed in a continual, communing way. I know there are some authors who write about this, but as a whole, I think we as Christians have fallen into the unbiblical and very naïve, even dangerous, habit of living our lives in our own wisdom and strength. We may think that we might be able to access God’s resources in an emergency, if we really need it or want it, but how many of us seek out His fellowship as a priceless treasure? To know the peace of Christ, to have His joy in us, to know His will, to experience His pleasure – now THAT is life indeed, and leads to a life worth living.
The point is that those of us who have fallen for pornography and the lusts of the flesh not only are walking away from this glorious promise and experience of fellowship with the Living God, but we are choosing instead fellowship with demons. How insulting to the Spirit of Grace! How offensive to the Holy God who has redeemed us and purchased us with His own blood (Acts 20:28)! What a slap in the face to turn our backs on Jesus, Who stands at the door and knocks (Revelation 3:20), Who gave His life to redeem us and purify us and have fellowship with us and snatch us from the jaws of hell and the grip of His enemies, only to have us return once again to our enemies for pleasure and fellowship! That is what we are doing, and it is not only an offense to God but an opportunity for His enemies to mock Him! Like a woman who marries a husband then abandons him and returns to her former lovers! And we are guilty of the two evils of the cisterns God warns us about in Jeremiah 2:13, forsaking God and seeking some benefit from evil things that cannot give any benefit. Brothers and sisters, these things cannot be! We must seek His face and His fellowship continually. This transformation must be!
ASSIGNMENT: There two aspects to this transformation we must make: we must first stop seeking fellowship, comfort, excitement, or whatever else we are getting from viewing immoral images, and we must develop the habit of seeking regular, ongoing fellowship with Christ Himself. Cry out to God and ask Him to enable you to experience what it is like to be filled with the Spirit and walk in the Spirit on a regular, day to day basis. Ask Him to make fellowship with Him your regular experience in your Christian life. Cry out to Him also that He would remove from you any desire whatsoever for fellowship with demons. Ask Him to remove any interest in pornography or anything immoral. Keep crying out and asking Him for these things until they are reality and an ongoing habit in your life.