RESTORING FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER
by Joyce Meyer

God wants to have fellowship with us because He loves us. He knew every wrong thing we were ever going to do before we did it. Yet, He still chose to save us from our sins so that He could have a relationship with us. Now that’s amazing love!

When our relationship with God is unhindered, the result is a river of life flowing out of our innermost being, blessing not only us but also everyone around us.

1 That river of life is the thing that makes people look at us and want what we have, even when we haven’t said a thing to them about our faith. The problem is there are many things that can block the flow of God’s life through us. As believers, if we want to fully enjoy our relationship with the Father, we need to deal with anything that might be hindering it. I would like to focus on what I think is the number one hindrance to our fellowship with the Father.

The Main Problem
I believe the greatest obstacle to the flow of God’s blessings in our lives is simply being disobedient. As Christians there are two main areas of obedience. The first area is obeying what God’s Word specifically says. This includes things like renewing our minds and walking in love, as well as not lying, stealing or coveting what someone else has. The second area where we need to walk in obedience is in doing the specific things God speaks to us as individuals.

Although God wants to fulfill His many promises in each of our lives, a number of these promises come with conditions. For example, in Luke 6:35 we are told that if we will love our enemies, then our reward will be great. In other words, we have a certain responsibility to fulfill before God will do what He has promised. The rewards of our obedience are not only obtaining the promises, but also maintaining a clear channel for our relationship with the Father.

2 What are some of the reasons why we disobey? For starters, we struggle at times with the idea of taking responsibility and doing our part to experience God’s blessings. We may even develop a severe case of selective hearing—only hearing what we want to hear and avoiding things that we don’t want to deal with. We can also be easily distracted from obeying God by our fleshly desires and temptations the enemy sends our way.

Whatever the reason for our disobedience, in order for us to be obedient, we have to choose to die to our flesh and learn to resist temptation. Temptation is not going to go away, but we can choose not to give in to it. Sin is not going to die, but we can die to sin. In fact, God’s Word says that our flesh, has been crucified with Christ.

3 Like Romans 6:11 says, we should think of ourselves as dead to sin and [our] relation to it broken, but alive to God [living in unbroken fellowship with Him] in Christ Jesus. How? By receiving His grace every hour of every day to not give in to the desires of our flesh and the temptations of the enemy.

4 Keep in mind that dying to our fleshly desires and learning to overcome temptation is a process. You shouldn’t be discouraged if you feel you haven’t arrived yet. Each time you choose to obey God, you are making progress in the right direction—a little more of your flesh dies, and the life of Christ is released in you.

The Key to Victory
Regular obedience is not only the way to maintain unbroken fellowship with the Father, but it’s also the key to victory in our lives. There is nothing that can keep God’s blessings from us if we will be extremely, radically obedient to Him.

5 When the Lord called me into ministry, I lost every friend I had. People thought I had lost my mind because in the circles I came from, women didn’t preach. After I got baptized in the Holy Spirit, my friends and even some of my family members didn’t want to have anything to do with me. In other words, when I got serious About my walk with God, the devil came against me with all he had.

At that point I had a decision to make: compromise and keep my friends, or be obedient to what God was telling me and lose my friends. Our decisions to obey or disobey God determine if we are going to keep moving forward with His plans or not.

When What’s Right Feels Wrong
If you and I want to experience unhindered fellowship with the Father and walk in His promises, then we have to learn how to do what’s right even when it feels wrong. Some of the wrong feelings we may experience include fear, discouragement and doubt.

In Joshua 1:3 the Lord told Joshua that every place upon which his foot would tread would be given to him. Notice that in the next several verses God instructed Joshua to be strong and courageous and not to be afraid or discouraged.
In the same way, every promise of God has already been bought and made available to us through the blood of Jesus.

But in order to receive His promises, we have to push past any wrong feelings that may hinder us from possessing them. Like Joshua, the strongest weapon we have in the battle is simply doing what God tells us to do no matter how impossible it looks or how we may feel.

This kind of obedience enables us to take ground away from the enemy and “possess the land” in our lives where Satan had once held us in bondage. It also means pressing on into new levels of obedience and maybe even doing what is not popular or comfortable to our flesh. If we’re feeding our spirits the Word of God and regularly fellowshipping with the Father, our spirits will be stronger than our flesh, and our minds will be renewed by the Truth.

A New Mindset
I can remember a time years ago when I was battling with several things in my flesh at one time. I was struggling to be a submissive wife and trying not to complain when I didn’t like what was going on in my life. I was also learning
to avoid arguments by keeping my mouth shut when I didn’t agree with what someone said.

During that time the Holy Spirit ministered to me from 1 Peter 4:1,2: So, since Christ suffered in the flesh for us, for you, arm yourselves with the same thought and purpose [patiently to suffer rather than fail to please God]. For whoever has suffered in the flesh [having the mind of Christ] is done with [intentional] sin [has stopped pleasing
himself and the world, and pleases God], so that he can no longer spend the rest of his natural life living by [his] human appetites and desires, but [he lives] for what God wills.

Like Peter, you and I need to develop the mindset that we would rather suffer in the flesh than choose to disobey God. In other words, there will be times when doing what’s right will not feel good mentally, emotionally or physically. But doing the right thing—even though it may hurt—will result in avoiding the greater pain of disobedience down the road.

First Peter 5:10 says that …after you have suffered a little while ,the God of all grace…will Himself complete and make you what you ought to be, establish and ground you securely, and strengthen, and settle you. When we suffer for the sake of obedience, we have the reward of knowing that we are pleasing God and that nothing is hindering our relationship with Him. This puts us in position to experience His blessings in our lives.

Between Us and Victory
Are you willing to follow Jesus’ example and be obedient even if it hurts? Will you choose to praise God even when you don’t feel like it, be good to people who are not good to you, and forgive under any circumstances? Isaiah 1:19 says that if you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land. You can’t see everything that’s wrong in your life fixed all at once, but you can cooperate with God to see Him change the thing He is dealing with right now.

Thankfully, walking in obedience is not something we have to do in our own strength. Yes, God wants us to obey Him and work out our salvation, but He is the one who empowers us to do it. As Philippians 2:13 says, it is [not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.

I encourage you to find out what it is that God is focusing on in your life, and do what you need to do to get it right. Get radical about obeying Him and dealing with whatever He puts His finger on until you experience real change. Keep on pressing in until every hindrance is removed and your broken fellowship with the Father is restored. Remember, God loves you, and His plan is that every place on which your foot shall tread will be given to you.

Receive His grace to do what’s right and become radically obedient now. As you do you’ll be able to resist the enemy, die to your flesh, and live in your “promised land,” enjoying unbroken fellowship with the Father forever!

(1) See John 7:38. (2) See Isaiah 59:2. (3) See Galatians 2:20. (4) See James 4:6. (5) See Deuteronomy 30:16.