Knowing Jesus
I learned a long time ago that God promises to give us what we pray for if we ask according to His will. But I often stumbled in knowing what His will was so that I could pray that way. In my young adult years my prayers were often ended with, ‘IF it is your will.’ Over time, though, my prayers and my heart grew dull and stagnant. Though I’m sure there are many reasons for this dullness, I believe it was partially due to lack of confidence that I was actually praying according to His will. Ultimately I became cynical about prayer.
Does God have a favorite? I think we can all agree that Jesus is most certainly His favorite. Multiple times while Jesus walked this earth 2000 years ago, the voice of the Father boomed out from heaven: "This is my beloved Son in whom I am greatly pleased!" When you consider that from all of eternity past, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit dwelt in the greatest of fellowship together, it becomes obvious that when it comes to being a favorite Son, Jesus wins hands down.
But what of you or I? God's favorite? If you're like me, there is a lot inside of me that screams out, "are you kidding?" There is certainly nothing within me that qualifies me for that nor anything that I've done that would be worthy of that title.
"The disciple whom Jesus loved!" What a statement! A few years ago while wandering in a spiritual desert of sorts, I decided I needed to start reading my Bible again. When I came to this statement in John's gospel, something inside me said, 'Yes, that's what I want to be known for.' I didn't have any idea what that might look like, but I knew that was something I wanted and so I began to ask God for it.
Fast forward to the present and I find myself beginning to comprehend this just a little bit. God in His steadfast love has been slowly wooing me into a deeper understanding of what that means and teasing my heart with the reality of these words.
I began this series over a year ago after I discovered some clear scriptures [1] that we are invited into fellowship with God. I felt the Holy Spirit gave me the basic bullet points of the overall series,[2] but He let me sit on this one for a long time as I meditated on it, searched the scriptures and sought to understand what He meant by “God demands fellowship.” I offer to you some of my thoughts on this and may the Holy Spirit bring light and discernment to your hearts.
At first I was a bit put off by the word “Demand.” It doesn’t seem to fit with a message focused on intimacy with God. Yet, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it’s appropriate because the demands of God are paramount to our fellowship with Him. The word ‘demand’ carries with it the following meanings:[3]