WHY FELLOWSHIP WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT?

    The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, He is the One whose ministry is taking place on the earth today. In fact from the day of Pentecost He arrived and He has not returned back because He is the One who will take those who are members of the body of Christ back at the rapture of the church. When the last trump shall sound, according to 1 Corinthians 15:52. And remember that He alone Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2, that only knows the things of God. It is necessary to be in fellowship with the Holy Spirit because that is His ministry today for the body of Christ. And because of His strategic ministry today to the believer, we need to be in sync with Him to know what to do per time so as to accomplish the will of the Father in heaven. 

    As we seek to be effective and enjoy this fellowship, we must be fully yielded to Him and follow His leadership because He alone knows the things of God for us to be able to live the beautiful life. And there is a spirit of the world that the enemy of our souls, the devil functions with to stop the work or will of God from being accomplished on the earth. 

    The devil is advancing forcefully even though he is no match for God but we are God's people who has legal rights here to enforce the will of our Heavenly Father - to bring the sinners and the unsaved back to a relationship with God, this is the reason Jesus died. 

    Without fellowship with the Holy Spirit, discernment will be zero for us and we will be swamped like Adam was and once again truncate God's purpose for our lives. For this reason, we  need to align to God's purpose and obey His leadership. It takes faith to fellowship with the Holy Spirit and faith works when we love God absolutely because Him whom we love, we will obey His word promptly. 

    We can as well declare just like Jesus said in John 8:29, that we are not alone because our Father is with us because we do what pleases Him. We need fellowship with the Holy Spirit as we need oxygen to be alive as human beings on the earth because He is our Leader and He knows what is hidden to the eyes, ears, and minds of humans, He has the blueprint of our lives. 

Make this decision today!

Enough of the procrastination.

                                    THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE

    Everyone desires to have a beautiful life here on earth, however everyone of us have our own definitions of what we think makes life beautiful. I will be focusing on what i believe a beautiful life is. Based on my studies from the word of God and some of the people who have lived here on earth, i have come to conclude that the beautiful life is a life lived on God's terms and conditions for each individual. I will use this opportunity to do an acronym of the word BEAUTIFUL.  I believe acronyms help us paint pictures of some of the things in our minds when we think of certain words. 

    Acronym for the word BEAUTIFUL. the Best life is Experienced Always when U choose to Trust God Irrespective of your Fears and U choose to Live according to His purpose for your life. 

    What is the beautiful life? It is a life that is lived according to God's purpose and will for the individual, not a live lived according to one's ambitions. Let's look at the life of our Lord Jesus. When He emerged on the scene after His baptism at River Jordan, He immediately started preaching about the kingdom of God and said that we should seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness so that life's needs would be met by God. And in Matthew chapter 7:21, He made one profound statement, that it is not everyone who calls Him Lord that will enter the kingdom but only those who do the will of His Father in heaven. He was so full of the knowledge of God's will for His life that He breathed God's will at every point in time. In teaching His disciples how to pray, He said they should ask God for His will to be done on earth as it is being done in heaven. At some point He was so hungry to continue walking with His disciples, that He sat down by the well near Samaria and asked them to buy food so they could eat. When the disciples returned, they beckoned on Him to eat, but He postponed that desire so He could finish with the woman of Samaria whom He was ministering the good news at that time to. 

    The apostle Paul is another example who lived a beautiful life. Immediately he got the commission to ministry by the Lord on his way to Damascus, after Ananias prayed for him, the bible said that he began to do what he was commissioned to do. He counted his advantages with the Pharisees a loss to win his future with Christ. Even the other disciples of Jesus, they lived the beautiful life because they focused on what the will of God was for their lives.

    God's purpose for our lives is the call to the beautiful life. In this call are everything we need for life and godliness, that includes situations that may not be palatable but as long as they are in line with His purpose for us, rest assured, they will work together for our good just as the cross of Jesus and the persecutions that Paul faced all worked together for their good as they focused on living out the beautiful life that brought glory to God. Littered across the new testament especially from Matthew to John are several statements from Jesus showing us that the will of the Father is priority for our Lord. And if it is His priority, we must have it as our priority too. Check out these bible verses - Matthew 13:14, Matthew 12:50, and John 6:38, these are examples of verses that show us that Jesus was breathing the will of God, this is the beautiful life. 

    The beautiful life therefore, is a life that is lived on God's terms. He who created us has a reason for sending us into the world, and when we find out what His will is, then we can begin to live that life according to His blueprint for us. God's terms are found in the bible, His living word. So this is why we are to align with what He has written in the bible so we will be able to experience the beautiful life in 2023.

                                  

              WHAT IS FELLOWSHIP?

    The concept of fellowship is based on companionship and friendship. How do we see the reconciliation of man back to God through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.This reconciliation was necessary so that we can be restored to fellowship with God. And we were also given the responsibility to reconcile others to God through the word of reconciliation, that is the gospel of Christ.

     What actually is that word of reconciliation? It is the message that our sins for which has brought enmity between us and God has been paid for and forgiven by Christ. The implication is that now we have full access to God by His Holy Spirit made available to us in salvation. This full access to God also means that now there is no limitation to our communion or fellowship. He is our Father and we can confidently walk in fellowship with Him without the fear, guilt or condemnation that sin brings. And all of these are available because at the death of Jesus, the righteousness of Christ was credited to our account. And as He has resurrected, we now have a new nature of righteousness according to Christ's type of righteousness, because we believe that He took our place on the cross. Now, we are on the same level with God to relate with Him even though with all reverence. And indeed, it is a great privilege!

    Fellowship has to be mutual among those experiencing it and there must be a relationship one way or the other at some point. According to 2 Corinthians 13:14, there is the fellowship with the Holy Spirit, and in 1 John 1:3, we have fellowship with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, we also are called into fellowship with our Lord Jesus in 1 Corinthians 1:9, all these instances show us that fellowship is priority in our relationship with God. And if God places priority on anything, we will be making a huge mistake to place then on the back burner in our lives.

    Is it possible to maintain a constant and consistent fellowship with God? Absolutely yes ! Jesus our Lord experienced it. He was in constant tune with the Holy Spirit and He knew what to do per time. He is our all the time example in anything we need to do in life. In John 8:25-29, we see that our Lord is in total agreement with His Father because He's obedient and He pleases the Father. This shows us that this fellowship has to do with walking in faith because it is only faith that pleases God. It means that having fellowship with God is possible on His terms, if we will promptly obey His instructions as well as submit to His leadership. It means we place our personal agenda to the back burner and uphold His will, we allow our dreams to be submerged while His will is exalted.

    Was Jesus' life beautiful when He was on earth? Yes, He had a beautiful life amidst the challenges and persecutions He constantly faced with the Jewish rulers. His was so yielded to the will of the Father that He submitted to death on the cross, even when He had His own will, this is because He trusted His Father whom He has had fellowship severally and He knew that He will fulfill His word in raising Him up. And till forever, His obedience to the will of the Father makes Him relevant because He obtained a more excellent name at which every knee bows to and every tongue confesses to about His Lordship.

    If Jesus didn't have a constant fellowship with the Father, while on earth and trusted Him in little matters, it would have been so much difficult for Jesus to go to the cross. We ought to seek for the greater good of God's purpose in our lives daily by obeying in fellowship and trusting Him one step at a time knowing that He has the bigger picture as well as remembering that He created us for His pleasure.For this reason, the Father is drawing us to Himself through the ministry of the Holy Spirit so we can fully experience Him on earth and be able to represent Him fully just like our Lord Jesus did.  

 

            WHERE IS YOUR TREASURE?

    At the close of 2022, while I was preparing my mind on how this year would be like for me as a person, as I don't want to lose out on what God has in store for me. I got the word ALIGN impressed in my mind. And I began to meditate on it so I can know actually what is required expressly from me by God. For some time now, to make an acronym from words flow easily with me, I give God the glory for inspiring me on that though. So before I continue on the topic for today, let me share with us what God ministered to me about ALIGN as an acronym. This hit the nail on the head for me as how this year would go, at least for me. 

Absolutely Living In God's Nourishing word.Or

A Longing to dwell In God's Nourishing word.

Either way that you look at it, it points to one direction: that living in God's word or desiring to live in it, by allowing it to take over you as it should, is the key to aligning with what God has in store for me, or anyone in this year. 

In my last post, I mentioned that God's goal for creating man is for fellowship and to represent Him here on earth. To be with the Lord eternally, is His ultimate goal and this is His good pleasure. I also said that He desires a heart worship not a lip service. In Matthew 6:19-21, Jesus was ministering to the Jews during what we call the sermon on the mount, and He advised them not to lay up their treasure on earth where it is vulnerable to thieves and rust but in heaven where none of the two can reach it. Then in verse 21, He made a profound statement, "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also".

From the concluding part of my last post, I asked us what is preoccupying our minds? This is because whatever we give the seat of honor in our minds most of the time, is a huge indication of where our treasure is. Is your mind being taken over by the cares of this life? Then your treasure is only on this earth. Is your mind being taken over by your desire to marry, or your marriage and everything that is happening around it, your family, etc? Then your treasure is in your marriage and relationship, or family. Whatever it is that preoccupies your mind to the point that it affects meaningful fellowship with the Lord and you think that the situation is bigger than God, that is where your treasure is. and a sad situation indeed it is. 

Paul the apostle by the Spirit of God counseled us in Philippians 4:8, to think only on things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely and of good report as well as have virtue and are praise worthy, because they are what should preoccupy our minds. There is nothing else on earth that has met all the criteria about what to think upon except the word of God. For this reason, we need to ascend our thoughts to God's word if we are going to become the best versions of ourselves as He has prepared for us in 2023. because for us to be able to align accurately, we must first put His word in our hearts. 

And putting His word in our hearts is on the pathway for us to living according to His good pleasure. The word of God needs to be given its place of priority in our lives. I am not talking about knowing about Him from someone's explanation, but knowing Him by ourselves. God doesn't want anyone to be a go-between for us, His only go-between is Jesus, our Savior and He has accomplished that part. today, it is we and our Father on a love relationship with His word holding the sway of our hearts. Our Heavenly Father is our heartbeat, His word is our treasure so we set our hearts on Him.

God is calling us to full time fellowship with Him. Is it possible? Yes, indeed! Jesus lived in it. When He said to the devil in Matthew 4:4, that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. He meant that it is possible to exist 24/7 in the word of God. But to be able to live in it, we need to understand what fellowship really is.

           THE DRAWING OF THE FATHER (2)

There is a deep-seated hunger inside the heart of every human being. Truth be told, but i know that it is not everyone that will agree with me that this hunger is because of the desire for a relationship or fellowship with God. Like I said in my last post, this hunger doesn't originate from us exclusively. I mean that it is not we ourselves that planted that hunger. It was put there by God so that we can hunger or desire Him. He created Adam in His image and likeness for a reason - to have dominion over everything created and to have fellowship with Him. (Genesis 1:26, Genesis 3:8). But when Adam sold out deliberately to the devil's deception of Eve, God didn't give up in his pursuit of fellowship with mankind. 

Today, i want to conclude the topic: the drawing of the Father, so i can go on to other parts of the discussion. In Philippians 2:13, the bible tells us that God is at work in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. But what is His good pleasure? In Revelations 4:11, the bible tells us that God created all things and for His pleasure they are created. This means that creation is to give God joy when He looks at His handiwork, when He looks at the rest of the created things, His joy increases, as well as when He looks at mankind. 

Another question would be, what is it about mankind that makes Him to rejoice? His ultimate goal for creating man was to represent Him on earth and for fellowship, this fellowship is for eternity. And so He removed the barrier of sin when Jesus died, and also sent the Holy Spirit to help us live the supernatural life that we have received at the new birth. So to get the most of this restoration to fellowship with God, mankind has to accept the gift of salvation. And to also decide to walk with Him in trust and prompt obedience. Both of these has to do with our heart postures. 

God has called us to an intimate relationship with Him. This is why we cannot do without the fellowship with the Holy Spirit as believers in Christ. Anyone who is not yet born again lives by the spirit of the world, but once anyone receives salvation in Christ, he or she must of a necessity have this wonderful fellowship with the Holy Spirit. And to get the best of this our relationship with God, our hearts must be fully involved. God demands a wholehearted service or relationship or nothing at all. Any relationship where one party is the giver alone, that relationship is parasitic. Sadly, that is the experience of some of God's people with their Heavenly Father. To them He exists for only what they can get from Him and they are oblivious of His needs. Yes, God has a need. and that need is what brought Jesus to die for mankind. 

According to Matthew 15:1-8,  Jesus educated us about something very important in worshiping God. In verse 8, He made an observation about the Pharisees, and He said that they worship God but their hearts are far from Him. Today, a question is thrown at us, where is your heart? In order to answer this question accurately, let us examine something. 

• What preoccupies your mind? 
  
• When you have a need, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? 
• As you are desiring better relationship or a better marriage, business, life, career, in 2023 what has been your mind's preoccupations?
• Who comes into your mind first? 
  

 This is one of the ways we can use to check if we are in love with God or in love with something or someone else. 

Our Precious Heavenly Father is asking for a deeper and closer walk with us from all of us. So He is drawing us by the Holy Spirit because He sent the Holy Spirit to abide in us forever. That abiding has to do with fellowship as well as for His good pleasure and will to be accomplished in our lives. 

                                     

                             THE DRAWING OF THE FATHER (1)

No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.  (John 6:44 KJV)

The hunger in our hearts to know God is not from us exclusively. God put it there. This is because we were created primarily to have a relationship with Him, and every relationship thrives on good fellowship. But the rebellion of Adam turned us away from that relationship. 

Jesus came at the right time to restore the connection to that relationship with God through His death on the cross. So He brought mankind back into that relationship on a legal basis. Just like we were not present when Adam sinned, but his rebellion implicated the human race because he was the human model. So also, Jesus died to represent the human race on the cross, so His death, burial and resurrection was on behalf of every human being. But it is not everyone that has accepted the gift of salvation. 

Those who has received the free gift of salvation, it is not so many that has fully grasped the truth and the goal of this precious gift. The goal is to have an abiding fellowship with the Lord, this is why He gave us the Holy Spirit to live in us. 

It is a pity that so many of God's children want Him only when they have a need or challenge. But prefer to spend time with everything else or everyone else when they want fellowship. Do you know that the desire to eat, or sleep or be with a friend or get involved in one activity or the other in some occasions is an indication that you are hungry for God? There are legit times that you are hungry to eat food or see a friend or desire to sleep, but my point is that there are some other times that we are hungry for God. But it is just that we didn't know what to fill that desire or longing in our hearts for something beyond what we just have, so we opt for the physical things we have in our world. 

There is a yearning in our hearts or a hunger within us to be closer to God. This hunger is in every human being because we are created to house God. Yes, we are created to be a habitation for God as well as to have fellowship with Him, if not we would have been created to be any other of God's creation. This drawing is a pull within us for something more than what we seem to have but we can't place our hands on because it is more than a physical thing.

For this reason, we come to Him whenever we have challenges or situations that are beyond us as we walk with Him. But God didn't create us to come to Him only when we have needs, He created us for His pleasure (Revelations 4:11). He created us to bring joy to His heart as we relate with Him.

 The goal of every intimate relationship is to be one with the person whom we are in relationship with. This involves a lot of other things to be in place. and at the end, there is joy, peace, happiness, communion, progress,etc. Those involved in an intimate relationship have one thing in common...a unity of purpose. If not it is deception and a waste of time. 

In order to achieve intimacy, there is always a need to stay away from the crowd, distractions, and stay alone with the one who loves you. This we should do often in prayers, fellowship, worship and in the reading/studying of the word.

FAITH IS AN ACT!

                                        Put an action to your hope

So many people desire to experience a healing from a health situation, or have some financial increase, job opportunities, etc, come their way especially when all hope of getting assistance or a healing is all lost. 

 

A lot of them hope they could wish upon a star and get their needs met or the healing just work out within the batting of an eyelid. But what they seem to miss in all their wishes is that nothing works until someone puts something to work! 

 

Though there are rare cases where some of these situations are just the click of a button away. But even in such situations, someone has already done something at some point or another and has come to their point of a final act that culminates to get the desired result to manifest just as if nothing was done. And because of cases like this, so many believers in Christ get lazy in their thoughts and attitudes that they slack in their spiritual responsibilities as it concerns their relationship with God and want some magic to happen. 

 

To have your hopes enlivened, the individual still has something to do. There is need to meet the One who has all possibilities in His hands, and this is done in the place of prayer. It is necessary that believers in Christ stay full of hope because that is the beginning of that miracle that they may so desire. Finally, we are told in the bible that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (not visible to the physical eyes). Hebrews 11:1 KJV.