By
Randall J Brewer
Why are you here? You are here to have a relationship with the living God. Know that God loves you and He wants to have a close, personal relationship with you. It was for this reason that man was created in the first place. God wanted a family He could commune with, a family He could call His own. This is why the fall of man was so devastating. It broke God’s heart because the sin that entered in now hindered Him from having a close relationship with His most prize possession. He sent Jesus to the earth to remove the barrier of sin and now the doors are wide open for fellowship between God and man to be restored. Jesus said in John 17:25,26 (NLT), “O righteous Father, the world doesn’t know You, but I do; and these disciples know You sent Me. I have revealed You to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for Me will be in them, and I will be in them.” Getting saved is all about having a relationship with God. Living your life and growing spiritually is all about relationship as well.
God wants you to walk with Him the way Enoch did in Gen. 5:24, “And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.” Imagine that. Enoch walked with God so closely that one day God just took him home to heaven. Noah also walked with God. Gen. 6:9 says, “Noah was a just man, perfect in his generation. Noah walked with God.” The Young’s Literal Translation says Noah walked with God “habitually.” To grow spiritually, you must do the same thing. You must walk with God habitually. Walking with God indicates movement. You’re going somewhere. Hopefully, you’re going where He wants to take you. Many people may have had an encounter with God early in their lives but have gone no where since. There’s no movement in their life and they’ve become stagnant in their relationship with God. Their lives are now dull and void. They may be saved but there is no fellowship with the One who saved them in the first place. Walking with God is not a one time experience. It’s a journey where He takes you from glory to glory.
God is a God of progression. He never changes but He never stays in the same place. He’s a God of movement and you must walk with Him to keep up with where He’s going. It’s that movement that will produce a positive change in your life. You’ll grow spiritually and will be changed into His glorious image. Having a healthy and close relationship with God is all about spending time alone with Him. It’s about fellowship and this is what determines how much you’ll grow spiritually and how far you’ll go in this life. Not only are you to know the Word of God, you’ve got to know the Author of the Word of God. Paul said “for I know whom I have believed” (2 Tim. 1:12). He didn’t say what he believed but rather who he believed in. Faith and fellowship with God are inseparable. Knowing the scriptures without knowing who God is produces a form of godliness but will lack the power to do any good in your life. Jesus said in John 17:3, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
1 John 1:3,4 (NLT) says, “We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy.” The Amplified Bible says “this fellowship that we have, which is a distinguishing mark of a Christian, is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ, the Messiah.” Did you catch that? John said the distinguishing mark of a Christian is the fellowship they have with God. The strength of any relationship is fellowship and this is what sets believers apart from anybody else in the world. Ex. 33:11 says, “So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” That’s fellowship. Moses said in vs.13 (AMP), “Show me now Your way, that I may know You, progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with You, perceiving and recognizing and understanding more strongly and clearly, and that I may find favor in Your sight.”
God wants to get personal with you and you should want to be personal with Him. This is what fellowship is all about. It’s the key to walking with God and walking with God is the key to change in your life. David said in Ps. 27:1, “The Lord is my light and my salvation. The Lord is the strength of my life.” David made his relationship with God personal. He said to God in vs. 8, “When You said, ‘Seek My face,’ my heart said to You, ‘Your face, Lord, I will seek.'” God needs to become real to you and this happens when you spend quality time alone with Him in fellowship. David said in vs. 4, “One thing I have desired of the Lord, that I will seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.” David was confident in his relationship with God. In the same verse David said he wanted “to behold and gaze upon the beauty, the sweet attractiveness and the delightful loveliness of the Lord and to meditate, consider, and inquire in His temple” (AMP). Is it any wonder David was called a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22)?
Fellowship with God will lead you to a place of confidence. 1 John 5:14,15 says, “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.” Fellowship produces confidence, and confidence produces a powerful life. Moses was able to do the things he did because he had fellowship with God and this increased his confidence. David was able to kill Goliath because of the confidence that came as a result of his fellowship with God. Another word for “confidence” is “faith.” Faith comes when you have close fellowship with God. Fellowship is what connected Jesus to the Father, and it will connect you to Him as well. Let the desire to fellowship with God be the strongest craving in your life. Ps. 42:1,2 says, “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.”
God loves you so much that He desires to have fellowship with you. He wants you to walk with Him the same way Adam did before he sinned. So strong is His desire for fellowship that He said in 2 Cor. 6:16, “I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” When your desire for fellowship matches God’s desire, you’ll be able to say what the psalmist said in Ps. 84:10, “For a day in your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.” The Message Bible says, “One day spent in Your house, this beautiful place of worship, beats thousands spent on Greek Island beaches. I’d rather scrub floors in the house of my God than be honored as a guest in the palace of sin.” These words reveal the heart of a man who walked with God. Those who are called into fellowship with God don’t get caught up in the things of the world. They are “strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Heb. 11:13) and walking with God is all they think about.
1 Cor. 1:9 says, “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” The Amplified Bible says you “were called into companionship and participation with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” God loves you and you’ve been called into fellowship with Him. It’s your fellowship with Him that will establish your faith and cause it to grow. It’s what causes you to grow up and mature spiritually. If you want your life to change, if you want to be transformed into the image of Christ, then you must develop the habit of spending time alone with God. This goes way beyond the casual reading of scripture or skimming through some devotional where you forget what you’ve read ten minutes later. This desire to spend time alone with God needs to be genuine and you need to be fully committed to doing it on a daily basis. Transformation comes no other way. It’s the God-designed method through which your life becomes radically changed. You go from glory to glory only by having a continual, personal, and ongoing relationship with the living God.
Yes, you need fellowship with other believers but it’s that time spent alone with God that your relationship with Him grows and thrives. Most believers go to church but how many get alone with God in the privacy of their own homes? The truth be told, the majority of Christians fail to do this not realizing that this is the very place God has designed to meet with them and bring growth and change into their lives. There is no escaping the need to get alone with God and meet Him in a life changing way on a daily basis. People perform religious rituals every day of the week but that doesn’t mean they’re acquainted with the great God of the universe. They don’t know Him because they don’t fellowship with Him. They go to church and hear about God but they don’t experience Him down in the core of their being. God designed you to have a close, personal relationship with Him. You need to be alone with God so you can be honest and transparent about how you feel and what you’re going through. You can’t do that in a crowd and this is why quality time alone with God is so important.
When Jesus died on the cross, the veil in front of the ark of the covenant was torn in two making it possible for you to have a one-on-one, face-to-face encounter with God. However, it is your responsibility to get alone with Him, to step into the “Holy of Holies” where the presence of God dwells. You purposefully meet the Lord in such a way so that His Word and His Spirit can transform you into the image of Jesus. David said in Ps. 62:1,2, “Truly my soul silently waits for God; From Him comes my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defense; I shall not be greatly moved.” The Message Bible says, “God, the one and only – I’ll wait as long as He says. Everything I need comes from Him, so why not? He’s solid rock under my feet, breathing room for my soul, an impregnable castle: I’m set for life.” David said his soul waits in silence. The truth be told, most people don’t wait very well. You need to realize how different your life will be if you will learn to wait on God alone. Ps. 46:10 says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Your quiet time with the Lord is what brings transformation power into your spiritual life. And it’s this power that will carry you through any hardship or trial that comes your way. This is why you must stop what you’re doing and be still so you can know He is God. Stop being consumed by the things of the world. This world is not your home and it’s certainly not your friend. You’re a pilgrim here, you’re just passing through. Paul said in Phil. 3:20, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” The Message Bible says, “But there’s far more to life for us. We’re citizens of high heaven!” If this world is not your home, then why allow it to control your time and thoughts? Why allow it to determine what choices you make in life? Why allow it to put you on a path you shouldn’t be on? The hard truth is, you must daily make a choice to reject the world’s way and follow Jesus Christ. You need to break away from the addiction of the smart phone and go off by yourself and be still in God’s presence.
Unseen forces can control what people do with their lives based on the ungodly things that show up on that little screen they hold in their hand. Too many people are being led like an ox with a ring in its nose. They’re being controlled by the world and don’t even realize it. This is why you’ve got to put that phone down and no longer allow it to determine what you give your attention to. You need to get alone with God and interact with Him instead of feeding your flesh with that smart phone. As a believer, you are in the world but not of the world. It’s time for you to experience a real relationship with God. You need to interact with Him in His Word and respond accordingly. The world takes no prisoners and it treats Christians and non-Christians the same way. It offers nothing but pain and destruction yet the majority of people let the world control what they say and do. You’ve got to purposefully stop this from happening and the first step is to get alone with God. This is a commitment you must make and keep every single day of your life.
You’ve fed your flesh long enough, now it’s time to feed your spirit. It’s time to hear what God has to say about your life instead of hearing what the world has to say. Set aside a time and a place where it’s just you and God communing with one another. Say “no” to all the distractions that are sure to come and commit to getting alone with God. You can do this if you’ll make up your mind to do it. Consider what Jesus did in Luke 5:15,16, “Great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities. So He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed.” Jesus would withdraw Himself from the crowds of people because He knew time alone with the Father was necessary in order for Him to complete the work He was sent to do. Jesus often walked away from the demands of those who wanted to be ministered to so that He could be alone with the Father (Mark 6:31). Mark 6:46 says, “And when He had sent them away, He departed to the mountain to pray.” How much more do you need to do the same thing?
Mark 1:35 says, “Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed.” Jesus was overwhelmed with ministry but He still took time to get alone with God and pray. The exact opposite is true with most believers today. They make excuses and say they’re too busy to spend time alone with God. The truth is, Jesus was too busy not to pray. He knew He couldn’t complete His work on earth if He didn’t have constant and continual fellowship with the Father. It’s this time alone with God where He’ll transform your life and give you the direction you need to fulfill your destiny. He told Ezekiel, “Arise, go out into the plain, and there I shall talk with you” (Ezek. 3:22). 1 Sam. 3:9,10 tells how the young boy Samuel heard God speak when he “went and lay down in his place.” He was quiet and alone and, sure enough, God spoke to him. Likewise, to effectively and powerfully hear from God, you must get in His presence quietly and alone.
Jesus said in Matt. 6:6, “But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” The Message Bible says, “Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense His grace.” Spiritual growth starts when you make a regular commitment to get alone with God. Your quiet time with Him creates the environment by which you may grow spiritually. Ps. 119:147,148 says, “I rise before the dawning of the morning, and cry for help; I hope in Your word. My eyes are awake through the night watches, that I may meditate on Your word.” The psalmist took time to get alone with God, even to the point of doing so in the middle of the night. He was very busy but not too busy to spend time alone with God.
God’s desire is to transform you more and more into the image of Christ but that can’t happen if you’re too busy to spend time alone with Him. 2 Cor. 3:18 says you “are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” It’s the Holy Spirit who changes you into the image of Christ but it is your responsibility to remain in an environment where the Holy Spirit can do His work. This happens when you spend quality time alone with God. If you’ll do that, the Message Bible says, “And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like Him.” The key to finding time to be alone with God is to have a strong desire to do so. People make time for things that are important to them. If you desire to know God in a personal way, you’re going to have to spend time alone with Him. It’s the degree of that desire that determines the effort you make to change your calendar and make time to be alone with God.
When you put your foot down and commit to spending time alone with God on a daily basis, you start the process of being changed from glory to glory. Your hope and faith in God is strengthened as you sit quietly alone in His presence. Say to him what the boy Samuel said, “Speak, for Your servant hears” (1 Sam. 3:10). God will indeed speak to you but you first must give Him time to speak. The world will bombard you with things to distract you but you need to set your eyes on spiritual things. You must make that choice because if you don’t you’ll continue to be led by the world and its evil ways. How can God lead you and transform you if you never give Him a chance to do so? Look beyond the horizon of the day and set your heart on things eternal and not temporal. Phil. 4:8 (NLT) says, “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”
Col. 3:2,3 says, “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” The things of this world are temporary and not worthy of your constant attention. God, however, is eternal and He is worthy of all your attention. He is the one you should keep your eye on. He is the one who should be consuming all your thoughts and time. Allow God to feed your spirit instead of allowing the world to feed your flesh. It takes a serious commitment to do this. You need to fight through the distractions of this world. You need to take heed to the words of Jesus spoken in Mark 6:31, “Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” In the midst of a hectic and crazy world, you’ve got to realize the importance of getting alone with God. David had a thirst for God and he wrote in Ps. 63:1, “O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.” David’s thirst for God drove him to spend time alone with Him. You must do the same.