Title: Spiritual Fellowship with God
Contents
1. Words that begin
The secret to receiving and enjoying God's power and wisdom, grace and blessings necessary for life, is the spiritual fellowship with God. However, there are church members who go to church to meet and fellowship with people, there are church members who go to church because they like the majestic and beautiful church building and the choir, and there are church members who go to church because they want to be among the crowd. There are members who go to church to meet.
However, what God really wants from us is spiritual fellowship. In fact, the saints usually live a life of spiritual fellowship with God, and then come to church and worship in spirit and truth for a deeper communion with God. Therefore, the most important thing in worship is to pour out your life before God and receive the Word with all your soul as well as your whole soul.
2. Fellowship with God described in light
The Apostle John emphasizes that the message that the apostles, including himself, preached was not obtained through meditation or heard from anyone, but from Jesus Christ. “The message is God's revelation to the people, not man's discovery,” Bruck commented.
The apostle John said, "God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all."
The light here is a metaphor for the essence and dignity of God, purity and immutability, perfect righteousness and truth, superior holiness, the character of love, and everything that falls within the realm and scope of God. God not only saves sinners who belonged to darkness, but also illuminates the path of their lives. In that God there is no darkness, the attributes of the devil, and no element of the devil.
Therefore, spiritual fellowship with God means living in the light and enjoying spiritual joy and peace. In other words, it is a life of loving God and humans with the love received from God, and a life of praying and obeying the Word.
When we walk towards the sun, dark shadows cast long behind us, but when we walk with our backs to the sun, dark shadows cast long in front of us. Likewise, when we live toward the light of God, the dark shadows of life cast long behind us, but when we live with our backs to the light of God, the dark shadows of life cast long before us.
Everyone, I hope you will live a life of spiritual fellowship with God by loving and obeying the Word. The psalmist confessed in 119:105, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” In the early church, Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, was called the light, and those who accepted him as Lord were regarded as those who entered the eschatological light and abide in him. Their pre-Christian past was regarded as ‘darkness’ and their baptism as ‘a giving light’.
I hope that all of us not only lament that the world is dark, but believe that God has placed us in the light, and live a life that illuminates the darkness through fellowship with God.
3. Those who walk in darkness
Apostle John was conscious of the false church members at that time and said, "If we say we have fellowship with God and walk in darkness, we are lying and do not practice the truth."
Most church members say they live in spiritual communion with God, and this is also what the Gnostics say. They claimed to be saved by spiritual knowledge and to have mystical communion with God. However, an idea or claim is not necessarily the same as reality.
In that sense, John is saying that if you walk in darkness, you are lying and not practicing the truth.
The devil and the person who walks in darkness, the attributes and domains of the devil, are not just those who live a sinful life in terms of ethics and morals, or who live a sinful life in terms of law. Even those who lead a life apart from the light of God or lead a life that has nothing to do with it are people who walk in darkness.
Of course, it is a lie to say that such church members and people “have a relationship with God.” By no means do they act in conformity with the nature and attributes, will and deeds of God described in truth, that is, light. These people are members only in name, not actual members. They claim to have a spiritual relationship with God, but in reality they are living under the control of the devil.
In a newspaper on November 22nd, there was an article about this really big female lead.
At a church in Suwon, the woman worked as an accountant for over two years from June 1994 to August 18 last year, and was accused of stealing about 131 million won in donations and church revenues 115 times in total. are said to have been arrested and
Still, she is not an aid to the church offering thieves. The original was Judas Iscariot, and there were other descendants.
Oh well, that preacher left the church without a sound. Well, even if I wait while thinking that there are all kinds of special things, nothing comes. However, some church members scolded me for taking the money, and even a villager lent me tens of thousands of won because I paid well in interest, and then came to the church and scolded me for taking it all off.
I was so shocked that I forgot what to say, and I didn't know where to put myself in regret.
Within the church, we only seek spiritual communion with the Lord and spiritual work, and outside the church, we must lead a life that is driven by such things. It is not advisable to make orders within the church or to conduct money transactions between members of the church. I'd rather help out and drink some.
Only light can defeat darkness. Humans who have departed from God's light, no matter how wonderful they may appear, may one day be revealed as tools of Satan, the ruler of darkness.
4. Consequences of those who dwell in the light
Just as God is light and is in the light, so we too must walk in the light.
"It's very important to talk about walking in the light," Laimer said. To walk “according to the light” would require sinless perfection, thus making it impossible for sinful humans to have communion with God. However, acting “in the midst of” the light reminds us of an openness and responsive attitude towards the light. John did not consider Christians to be innocent, even though they were walking in the light.”
Those who walk in the light, that is, those who live a life of spiritual communion with God, have the following results.
First, there is a spiritual relationship between the saints in the Lord that the world cannot imitate.
Second, the blood of Jesus, the Son of God, cleanses believers from all sins. Here, rather than the forgiveness of sins related to justification, it should be viewed as the forgiveness of sins related to the sanctification of the saints walking in the light. Faithful and righteous, Jesus forgives us who live in the light and confesses our sins and cleanses us from all unrighteousness.
5. Conclusion
Just because we are justified by faith does not make us innocent or impeccable. We must continue to live a life of spiritual fellowship with God until we enter the kingdom of heaven after being resurrected with a spiritual body. Just as God is in the light, I sincerely pray that by dwelling in the light, we can build spiritual communion with each other, enjoy the grace of the Lord's forgiveness, and illuminate the darkness of the world.
(Poongseong Methodist Church. Book: Complete Commentary on 27 New Testament Books/ Interpretation of Difficult Scriptures I, II/ Salvation Before Jesus Came/Paul’s Understanding of Man/ Prosperity Prayer/ Seasonal Sermonbooks/ Sermonbook 18. -3051)