“We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” 1 John 1:3 (NIV)
The great privilege of every Christian is to live with God in daily – even moment by moment – fellowship with him. We don’t have to wait until we get to heaven to know and experience God. Because we have accepted God’s gift of salvation by trusting Jesus Christ as the one who paid the penalty for our sin, we have been born again, given eternal life, and been reconciled to God. Theologians call this “positional truth.” This is the position every believer occupies in God’s sight, and it never changes.
The problem, however, is that God is perfectly holy while we, on the other hand, still live in a sinful world, have a sinful flesh to deal with, and often succumb to temptation. John makes this difficult reality abundantly clear later in 1 John 1:
“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth…. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us…. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.” 1 John 1:5,6,8,10
John is saying here that even though we believers have been born again, even though we are children of God, and even though we have eternal life, sin is still a very serious matter because, though it doesn’t break our position with God – we are still God’s children even though we sin – it does break our fellowship with God.
For example, in our marriage and family relationships, we may have some kind of falling out with our spouse or children. But an argument doesn’t mean that we are no longer married or that our children are no longer our children. It just means that we are having difficulty in our relationship with each other.
The same is true in our “family relationships” with God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. We may sin against God, but that doesn’t mean we are no longer his child. It does mean, however, that there is an interruption in our relationship that needs to be addressed.
So as a child of God who still has issues with sin, how do I resolve this problem? Fortunately, John gives us two solutions.
The first solution is to always walk toward the light.
“If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” 1 John 1:7
Consistently walking in the light can be very difficult and sometimes very humbling. We know intuitively when we’re not walking in the light, don’t we? God speaks to us through our conscience, through his word, and through others that something we have done or said is wrong. The key is to quickly acknowledge that and turn around and face the light, the truth.
The second solution is to acknowledge our sin before God and others.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9 NIV
Confession, also, can be very difficult. But, like a muscle that needs exercising, consistent confession for specific sin results in a healthy and restored relationship between us and God.
The thing I especially like about 1 John 1:9 is its ending: “and purify us from all unrighteousness.” There are all kinds of sinful things about us that we are unaware of which, nevertheless, offend God. But when we confess the sin we are conscious of, he graciously forgives us even of the sin we are unconscious of.
All healthy relationships are based on honest communication, genuine humility, and forgiveness. It’s no different between us and God.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
Since 2003 New Commandment Men’s Ministries has helped hundreds of churches throughout North American and around the world recruit teams of men who permanently adopt their widowed and single parents in their congregations for the purpose of donating two hours of service to them one Saturday morning each month. We accomplish this with a free training site called New Commandment Men’s Ministry
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One thought on “Walking in Fellowship with the Living God”
Fellowship with God without ceasing.