Knowing and Fellowshipping with God

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

Matthew 11:28-30 (KJV) We have come now to the final chapter of our journey together. We have spoken of many good and beautiful things — of prayer and the scriptures, of marriage and singleness, of raising children and managing homes, of working and teaching and serving and shining. All of these are precious callings. But if I left you with only these things, I would have failed you. Because none of them — not one — can be lived out in your own strength. The Christian life is not a long list of duties to perform. It is a living relationship with a living God. Everything else in this book flows from one great fountain: knowing and fellowshipping with God Himself. If you miss this, you miss everything. If you find this, you have found the one treasure that is more precious than all others.

Let me begin with the foundation of every other truth: You are loved. You are loved by the Living God, the Maker of heaven and earth. You are loved not because you have been good, not because you have prayed enough, not because you deserve it, not because you have pleased anyone. You are loved because love is who God is. The Bible says plainly that God is love. It is His very nature.

Long before you took your first breath, He knew you. Before He laid the foundation of the world, He chose you. On the cross, Jesus held you in His heart as He died for your sins. And right now, as you read these words, He is not frowning at you. He is not disappointed in you. He is smiling over you. The prophet Zephaniah says that the Lord your God rejoices over His people with singing. Jeremiah says He has loved you with an everlasting love. Paul says that nothing in all creation — not life, not death, not angels, not things present, not things to come, not height, not depth, not any other creature — shall be able to separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Now hear this wonderful truth. The same God who loves you also wants to walk with you. He wants to share His life with you. From the very beginning, when sin had not yet entered the world, God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden in the cool of the day. That is His heart toward us.

When sin came, fellowship was broken — but through the precious blood of Jesus Christ it has been fully restored. Now, through the Holy Spirit, you can walk with God every day of your life.

You can know Him. You can hear His still small voice. You can be led by His gentle hand. You can share your joys and your sorrows with Him. Fellowship with God is not reserved for pastors or missionaries or people with special gifts. It is the birthright of every believer, and it is yours today.

Think of the people in scripture who walked closely with God. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. Abraham was called the friend of God. Moses spoke with the Lord face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. David was called a man after God's own heart.

Mary of Bethany sat at Jesus' feet and chose the good part, which would not be taken from her.

Paul said that one thing was his great longing — that he might know Him. These men and women are not far above you. They breathed the same air you breathe. They lived in the same kind of world. And the same God who met them is ready to meet you. The door is open. The invitation stands. Come.

Let us speak now of daily fellowship with the Lord. Like any good friendship, this fellowship grows through time spent together. I encourage you to set apart a time each day — even ten or fifteen minutes at first — simply to be with God. Open your Bible. Read a small portion. Meditate on what you read. Then speak to the Lord about what He has shown you. Thank Him. Confess sin if the Spirit brings something to mind. Ask His help for the day. Pour out your heart. Then be still, and listen. You may not hear a voice, but you will sense the gentle nudges of the Spirit. You will feel His peace settle over you. You will know that you are loved.

Do not let this time become a burden or a performance. Your Father is not grading you. He is delighted that you have come. When you miss a day, do not feel condemned — just come back the next day. When your heart is dry, come anyway. When your heart is full, come and praise Him.

Come as you are, every day, and slowly, over the weeks and years and decades, you will find that you have become a woman who walks with God. This is a great treasure. It is more valuable than gold. It will carry you through every season and every storm.

Our Lord Jesus gave us the most beautiful picture of fellowship in John chapter fifteen. He said, "I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing." This is the great secret of the Christian life. Abiding in Christ. A branch does not struggle to bear fruit. It does not strain or sweat or work itself into exhaustion. It simply stays connected to the vine, and the life of the vine flows through it, and fruit comes naturally in its season. So with you, my sister. Stay connected to Jesus. Abide in His love.

Abide in His word. Abide in His presence. And the fruit will come — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. You cannot produce this fruit by striving. You can only receive it as the life of Christ flows through you.

Now let me speak of the Holy Spirit, for He is the One who makes this fellowship real and daily in your life. The Spirit is not a vague force or a distant influence. He is a person — the third person of the Trinity — who lives inside every true believer in Jesus Christ. On the day you believed, He came to dwell within you, and He will never leave. Jesus called Him the Comforter, which means one called alongside to help. He is your Helper, your Teacher, your Guide, your Strengthener, your Comforter in sorrow, your Convicter in sin, your Witness that you belong to God. When you do not know how to pray, He intercedes for you with groanings which cannot be uttered. When you are tempted, He gives you power to overcome. When you are confused, He leads you into truth.

When you are weary, He refreshes you. When you are afraid, He brings peace. He is the seal of God upon your life, the pledge of your eternal inheritance.

Walking in the Spirit simply means living with Him consciously, moment by moment. In the morning, when you rise, invite Him to lead you through the day: "Holy Spirit, fill me afresh. Guide my steps. Use my words." When you face a decision, pause and ask Him: "Holy Spirit, what would You have me do?" When you feel anger rising, whisper, "Holy Spirit, give me Your patience."

When you must speak a hard truth, ask Him for the right words. When you are going to visit the sick, ask Him to minister through you. When you are tempted, cry out to Him, and He will give you the way of escape. This is not complicated. It is the most natural thing in the world for a believer. Moment by moment, you walk in step with the Spirit, and He bears fruit through you that no human effort could ever produce. He does the work. You simply yield.

Now hear the wonderful words of our Lord in Matthew chapter eleven, which opened this chapter: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Consider what a yoke is. In our villages and on our farms, you have seen two oxen yoked together for plowing. A yoke is a wooden frame that joins them so that they pull together as one. When Jesus says, "Take my yoke upon you," He is inviting you to be joined to Him, to walk with Him, to work alongside Him. And here is the glory of it: He is the strong one. He does the heavy pulling. You only have to walk with Him, in step with Him, matching His pace, following His direction. That is why His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

The Christian life becomes heavy and crushing only when we try to pull alone. When we walk yoked to Jesus, His strength carries us, and even the hardest work becomes a joy.

This is why the Lord Jesus said that the first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. Loving God is not drudgery. It is the most joyful thing in all the universe. It is the reason you were made.

And how do you grow to love God more? The Bible gives us the answer: "We love him, because he first loved us." Your love for God is not something you must manufacture by hard effort. It grows as you see more and more how much He has loved you. So gaze upon His love. Meditate on the cross. Remember how He sought you when you were far from Him. Remember every answered prayer. Remember every tender mercy. Remember that He is carrying you even now, in this very moment. The more you see His love, the more your heart will swell with love for Him in return. You will find yourself singing to Him as you cook. You will find yourself thanking Him as you walk. You will find yourself delighting in Him in the middle of the ordinary day.

And then, out of that great love, flows the second great commandment — to love your neighbour as yourself. You cannot love others in your own strength. You will try, and you will fail, and you will grow weary, and you will become resentful. But when you are filled with the love of God, love for others pours out of you as naturally as water from a spring. You find yourself caring for the widow, kind to the stranger, patient with the difficult neighbour, tender with your children, gentle with your husband, forgiving to those who have wounded you. This is not because you have tried harder. It is because the Spirit of the Lord is producing His fruit in you. Love begets love.

This is the beautiful cycle of the Christian life: God loves you, you love Him back, and His love flows through you to everyone around you.

Let me tell you of a humble Frenchman named Brother Lawrence, who lived in the 1600s and worked in the kitchen of a monastery, washing pots and pans. He was not an educated man. He was not a great preacher. But he practiced what he called the presence of God in every small task.

Whether he was scrubbing a pot or picking up a straw from the floor, he did it with love for God and in quiet conversation with Him. Years after his death, his simple letters were gathered into a little book that has blessed Christians around the world for more than three hundred years. His great secret was that you do not need a special place or a special hour to walk with God. You can walk with Him in the kitchen, in the garden, at the market, on the road to fetch water, at the bedside of a sick child, in the quiet of the night when the house is asleep. The whole of life becomes worship when Christ is with you. This is also the great message of the East African Revival — a simple, daily, transparent walk with Jesus, keeping short accounts with Him and with others, living in the light.

My dear sister, as we close this chapter and this book, I want you to know, deep down in your soul, that the God who made the heavens loves you with an everlasting love. He is with you. His Spirit lives within you. His Son walks beside you, yoked to you, pulling the heavy part of every load.

The Father rejoices over you with singing. You are not alone. You are not forgotten. You are not forsaken. You are His beloved daughter, and He will never let you go. Walk with Him all your days. Love Him with your whole heart. Love your neighbour as yourself. Let your life become a quiet song of praise to the One who redeemed you. And when at last your journey on this earth is ended, you shall see Him face to face, and you shall hear the sweetest words ever spoken to a human heart: "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

A Prayer Father of mercies, I come to You now with a heart wide open. Thank You for loving me with an everlasting love. Thank You for sending Your Son Jesus to die for me and to rise again that I might be Yours forever. Thank You for the gift of Your Holy Spirit, who lives within me. Draw me deeper into fellowship with You. Teach me to walk with You every hour of every day. Let me hear Your voice, feel Your presence, and know Your peace. Yoke me to Jesus, that His strength may carry me when I am weak. Fill me afresh with Your Spirit, that His fruit may grow in my life. Help me to love You with my whole heart, with my whole soul, with my whole mind, and with all my strength. And out of that love, help me to love my neighbour as myself. Make my life a song of praise to You. And when my days on this earth are ended, bring me home to see Your face. In the precious and wonderful name of Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.