Fellowship with God

In the church world we have a tendency to equate "fellowship" with an excuse for eating. While it is true, there is an element of truth in the fact that we do have fellowship with one another as we break bread together, the reality is that we have lost the depth of meaning to this word, "fellowship." I could stay here and talk about this for awhile, but for today, I want to talk more about our fellowship with God.
We need to understand that God wants to walk in relationship with us. That is what fellowship is; walking in relationship with another.

As I was sitting and just thinking about the Lord and meditating today, I began to question how many people today really fellowship with God. We get so busy with life and even with "church life" and we have fellowship with one another, yet I fear we neglect fellowship with the very God who created us for that express purpose. I realize that it becomes so easy to substitute other things in place of our fellowship with God. Please understand clearly my next statement, or I will be branded a heretic. Here goes... I think that many times, we neglect our fellowship with God because we study His Word, and call that fellowship. Don't misunderstand, it is critical that we study the Word of God, however, it is entirely possible to know the Word of God inside and out, yet have no fellowship with Him. It is vital that we spend time not only in the Word, but also with Him, fellowshipping with God. Another reason we neglect that fellowship is because we are so busy trying to figure out where we are going that we actually miss our purpose. We are constantly focused on trying to discover what God wants us to do, or what his purpose for us is. Well, can I remind you, that we were created to have fellowship with God and to worship him. That is the first and highest priority for each and every single one of us. So, how are you do? Are you regularly doing and fulfilling that purpose?

I realize too that much our problem with our fellowship is that we try to rush that fellowship. So many of us cannot stay in the presence of the Lord for more than a few minutes without our thoughts rushing off onto something else. Many are guilty of worshiping God with their mouth, while their thoughts are actually off on what they are going to do for lunch or the football game that will be on TV that afternoon, and they find themselves looking at their watch wondering when the service will end.

I have a habit of worshiping with my eyes closed or looking above the heads of people in the congregation because it is such a distraction to look on the faces of many of those people. While we are worshiping the King of Kings and His presence is so full and real in the House, it is not uncommon to look out and see some faces absolutely blank and emotionless. Others will have a look of absolute boredom upon their face. It breaks my heart as I see this and realize that so many do not have a clue what it really means to get in the presence of God and to stay there and fellowship with the Lord. Honestly, some folks seem to look lost as to why we are even gathered together. They are more interested in looking around to see who is sitting where and what they are doing. Some seem to find their thrills in watching others worship, yet they never enter into worship for themselves. Still others want to get through the worship service so that we can get into the Word. I have actually heard people say, "It is more important to get into the Word than to enter into worship." No, No, No... and again I say NO!
We were created to worship Him!
We were NOT created to go to church.
We were NOT created to hear a man preach... although that IS important.
We were created to love and fellowship with the Lord!

The Word says,
"Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power:
For thou hast created all things (hey, that includes you and me!) and for thy pleasure they are and were created." (Revelation 4:11)

Don't lose sight of this one thing:
God is not after our worship; He is after us!
He is not waiting for you to sing another song, or dance or wave a banner...
He is waiting for YOU!

It 's not like God really "needs" our worship to satisfy himself. When you stop and think about it, what can we really offer him that does not already belong to Him?
All of creation is His, and right now, continuously without end, the hosts of heaven are giving worship and glory to Him. Yet, in all of this, God calls out to us and says "draw near to me." He desires our fellowship.
Again, God does not "NEED" anything from us, but He WANTS our fellowship. He longs for us to draw near and enter into fellowship.

What an awesome thought. The eternal God of Heaven and earth longs to fellowship with you and me! He does not want us to just know about Him... He wants us to know Him. He wants us to go beyond that simple relationship level and move into a fellowship level with Him. That requires an intimate love relationship where we really talk with Him and cling to Him with all our hearts.
There just is no substitute for sitting at the feet of God and allowing the deep parts of our spirit to know the deep things of God. That takes a hunger for God, and that hunger will be satisfied as we come to know Him more and more.