“Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name.” {Psalm 63:3-4}
The Lord God loves fellowship. That is why He made Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, to fellowship with them. That is why we love to gather with our friends and families, because the Lord has given us that desire to fellowship, and we find joy in being with people we love and get along with. We might not always see eye to eye all the time, but if there is friendship that ties us together and connects us, we will love to be with each other and we will fellowship.
Merriam-Webster dictionary defines fellowship as “Community of interest, activity, feeling, or experience”. Also, “A company of equals or friends.” And lastly, “the quality or state of being comradely.” Sometimes it’s hard for us to fellowship with the Lord because we think we are not equal with Him. God, our comrade? Imagine that! God, our equal, comrade, and friend? How is that possible? Well, whether we want to believe it and accept it or not, we have to, because that’s exactly what He said to His disciples: “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.” {John 15:15} Furthermore the Lord said to them, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you.” {John 15:13-14}
And what is His commandment? He was commanding them in verse 12 to, “Love one another, as I have loved you.” So that’s it. We are His friends if we love one another. If we do what He desires for us to do, we become His friends. If we come to Him and love Him and love each other, we become His friends, His equal, His comrade. So when we go to Him in prayer we should be confident to know that He is our friend. Not only that, but a friend that loves us so much He gave His life for us and died for us at the cross, to pay the price for the redemption of our soul. We all know that we live in this darkened world where Satan and his cohorts run rampant and cause havoc in people’s lives. If Jesus Christ didn’t love us and give His life for us, we have no chance at all against Satan. He will run our lives. We will see no end to our misery, and we will never experience the Spirit of God, or His presence that gives so much joy and peace. Thank you, Jesus, for Your great love for us in giving us Your life and dying at the cross for our price.
So today, when we come to Him we should not hesitate to come boldly to Him and ask for His forgiveness for anything we have done against Him, or anything evil we have said and thought of. We should boldly come and confess everything to Him without shame or reservation. He loves us and desires to give us joy and life abundantly. He doesn’t want us living in guilt and shame, carrying our sins every moment with us, when He gave His life for us for this very reason: to take our shame and guilt away.
This is something the Lord has dealt with me for so many years now, “Love Me Anyway.” Meaning, whatever happens, however I feel about myself, if I feel inadequate, or a failure in my pleasing Him, it doesn’t matter. He wants me to come to Him anyway and love Him anyway. He wants me to come and have fellowship with Him anyway. He wants me to talk to Him about what’s eating me up, whether about my inadequacy or my shortcomings in coming to please Him, or what others have said and done that bothers me, or about my fears. It doesn’t matter. He wants me to have fellowship with Him – to spend time with Him and talk to Him about all these things. Do you know that our loving Him anyway is our righteousness? When we feel completely unworthy of Him, but are loving Him anyway because that is His desire and it is pleasing and right before Him. Therefore, coming to Him and talking to Him no matter how we feel is our righteousness. This is something we should do.
I might not see Him visibly but He is very much real and alive. As real and alive as you and I are. I mean if we think that we breathe and live on our own today, and walk on this earth by our own wisdom and strength, we are fooling ourselves. We know as believers of Christ that we move and breathe and have our being because of God. We don’t live because of what we’ve done. We know it is God who has given us life physically, and has given His life for us at the cross so that we can live a spiritual life victoriously. We also must believe that when we do come to Him to talk to Him, that He hears us. He is there. He is alive, breathing, living, and is listening to everything we are saying. The Bible states that without faith it is impossible to please God, and that if we come to Him we must come believing that He is God and that He will reward those that diligently seek Him. {Hebrews 11:6} Diligently seeking after Him is simply means to fellowship with Him constantly, all the time, and as often as we can do it.
The more we fellowship with Him the more we will come to know Him and have Him in our lives. When He reveals Himself to us so that we understand who He is, see Him for who He is, and know Him for who He is, that is our reward. He truly becomes our friend that sticks to us closer than a brother! That is our ultimate reward, that is our ultimate prize in this life: Jesus Christ our friend. There is nothing greater than having the Lord Jesus as our friend, because He loves and loves and loves like no other friend can. He gives peace, He gives joy, He gives His friends what they ask Him for, and He gives eternal life. What more can we want from Him?
Last week I attended an outreach for my brother in a park, where the church he pastors reached out to the community before Easter. During their outreach there was a moment of praise and worship in song. After that praise and worship my brother invited the children and their families to come up to the front to be prayed for. I was busy taking pictures of this. I also was busy babysitting my infant nephew who finally fell asleep. I didn’t think much of it until in a little while this thought came to me, that I should be praying along with my brother for the people. So I said a prayer and went on thinking about the sights before me. Later that night in prayer I was hesitant in loving the Lord. I wasn’t open to Him as in time past. Why? Because my heart reproached me. I was coming up with all of these things that “I shoulda, woulda, coulda, done” for Him that day but I felt like I let Him down. I felt like I should have prayed harder, that the Holy Ghost would come down, that He would save the lives of the children and the people that were there, on and on and on. But I didn’t. I just said, “Bless them Lord” to that effect and didn’t really pray hard at all. Then the next day I continued to carry this guilt in my heart. I was coming up with all of these scenarios in my head that I should have done for the Lord and did not.
Not only that, the day before I also attended my aunt’s burial. Fellowshipping afterward with my relatives and my family, there were a couple of things there that bothered me as well. Again, instead of loving the Lord and talking to Him about this, I hesitated and kept them to myself. Finally, I got back to my normal routine of prayer and did my walk and talk again and this is what I got: “Love Me Anyway.” The first thought in my heart was that this is the title of my next blog post. I tried to start mentally writing what the Lord meant by it, and little by little it started to come to me. It doesn’t matter how I feel, how inadequate I feel, how short I am coming up in my desire to please the Lord. It doesn’t matter. The Lord loves me anyway, and He wants me to love Him despite of all this. He wants me to fellowship with Him anyway. Basically, I need to just keep coming to Him and keep loving Him and talking to Him about whatever is eating me up. Love Him anyway. Don’t pull away, love Him anyway. Don’t let your negative emotions pull you back from the Lord, make them bring you closer to Him. Bring all of these things to Him and love Him. One by one start talking to Him about them as if He is your best friend, because He is. Start sharing your thoughts with Him like He is your friend who desires to know what is going on in your heart, and who desires to lift you up and make you happy.
Well, so I did. I tell you, this has been my experience time and time again. When I go into details of the events I go through in my life, and how these events can affect me sometimes negatively, I talk to the Lord about them. I always, always find His comfort afterwards. His love is always giving, never condemning. His love is always willing to lift me up, never ever pointing a finger at me. He started to show me that there were so many more happy things that happened that day that I should really focus on and be thankful for. He also showed me that He forgives me for not praying hard enough. That He understood my state of mind at that moment and that it is not too late to still pray for those people and those children that were there – to love Him, to be saved, to find the Lord.
I just love Him so much. Again and again: love Him anyway, no matter what. It doesn’t matter how you’re feeling. Talk to Him. Share with Him everything that bothers your heart and your thoughts, and find the wonders of His friendship, His fellowship. I’m telling you He is indeed a friend that sticks closer than a brother, or anyone, for that matter. He loves us so much. His desire is to be our friend.
“Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, He may give it to you.” {John 15:16}
“I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad. O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together. I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.” {Psalm 34:1-4}
Prayer
Lord Jesus, I love You so much. Thank You with all of my heart for loving me and never, ever giving up on me in this life. I thank You for giving Your life at Calvary so that I can freely come and worship You and make friends with You. Thank You, Father.
Lord Jesus, I pray Savior for more faith in Your love for me. Help me to keep coming to You regardless of how bad I feel about myself or how far I have drawn away from You. Help me to keep loving You and keep coming back to You. I must have faith that You will never ever give up on me or ever turn Your back from me. You will always be there faithful in Your love because You are a faithful and true Friend. Thank You, Lord Jesus for hearing my prayers and granting my heart’s desires today. Thank You, Father. In Your most wonderful name I pray these things, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Image by Ylanite Koppens from Pixabay
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