Fellowship With The Father Is Truth And Life

Have you heard truths taught from the Bible that were more like formulas to guide you from one point to another instead of something that quickened your heart? While the lessons themselves were valid, there was an underlying emptiness.

One day, I approached John 14:6 with a fresh perspective. Jesus declared, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can reach the Father except through me.”

Perhaps, many of us have grasped that Jesus is the Way and the Truth, yet are missing the spirit of the Life? Can we separate Truth from Life and still have Life? As a teacher and writer for years, I admit that I have been guilty of this mistake. Truth is powerful, and it sets people free (John 8:31-32), but truth (in this context—good teaching) cannot stand alone apart from Life.

Life is fellowship with God. Adam and Eve were created to walk and converse with God in the Garden of Eden. Truth, in my mind, emerges from fellowship with Him. We often speak of a “relationship” with God, but we rarely discuss “fellowship.” Relationship is inherited, while fellowship is a choice.

Truth that is disconnected from Life can be reduced to a formula. However, the Truth that emerges from fellowship with the Father becomes Life. John comprehended this and expressed it in this way: “We declare to you what we have seen and heard, so that you may also have fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3).

John’s purpose in writing this letter was to invite others into the same fellowship with the Father and the Son that he had. Everything a person needs is derived from his relationship and fellowship with the Father and Son. Those who seek only what God can produce in their lives and not God Himself will always struggle to receive. Those who cherish a genuine fellowship with the Father and Son will naturally receive everything they require as a consequence of that profound relationship. That which we witness and hear in fellowship with the Father is Truth and Life.

You cannot separate Truth from Life and still have Life. Until we choose true fellowship with the Father, we will be left with mere formulas and frustration. I have personally experienced this, and you probably have as well. I strongly encourage you to seek fellowship with the Father. Allow the Holy Spirit to reveal the Truth of His Word to you. It will never be a formula; it will be Life.

Satisfied With Jesus

 

The night before His crucifixion, Jesus told the disciples He would be leaving them soon to prepare a place in His Father’s house for them. He told them that He would return one day to get them and that they knew the way.

 

Thomas declared they didn’t know where He was going and asked how they could know the way. 

 

“I am the way, the truth, and the life,” Jesus said. “No one can come to the Father except through me. If you’d really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

 

“Lord, show us the Father,” Philip said, “and we will be satisfied.”

 

Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak are not my own, but my Father’s, who lives in me and does his work through me. Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”

—John 14:5-11 

Are we like Philip and not satisfied with the truth that is right before us? Maybe we are like Thomas and have trouble believing. The Word is Jesus. He is right before us. His promises are “yes and amen.” Yet, are we like Philip, asking Him to prove Himself to us just one more time? Was His sacrifice for our sins and sicknesses not enough to prove His love? Jesus has revealed the Father’s love to us. We no longer have to prove what only Jesus could prove. We have a righteous, healed relationship with the Father. If Jesus has shown us the Father, why aren’t we satisfied with what He has done for us? Why do we have trouble believing every Word of truth He has given us?

There is a difference between mental agreement and believing something in your heart. You can know about Jesus and not know Him. You can know what the Word says with your mind and not believe the Word in your heart. The heart is where you believe. And for the heart to believe God’s truth, you cannot connect to Him mentally with your natural understanding. Your spirit must connect with His Spirit (2 Corinthians 2:14).

 

“For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power” (Colossians 2:9).

 

Jesus is in the Father, and the Father is in Him. Jesus is the fullness of the Godhead in you. You are complete in Him. Whoever is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him (1 Corinthians 6:17). That should be more than enough to satisfy us.

 

You received the righteousness of God in your born-again spirit when you were made new in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17, 21). It’s the heart that believes this (Romans 10:10). You must believe what His Word says about your new life in Christ, and believe it’s yours. You must know in your heart, and not just in your mind, that it is well with Him. To do this, your mind is renewed by the Word until it takes root in your heart. And you intentionally draw by faith from the truth of your identity in Him. 

 

“The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and strengthen your bones; you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. Therefore, with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation “Isaiah 58:11, 12:3).

 

Do you hunger to believe all Christ has done for you? To lay down all of your doubts and believe His truth? To taste and see that He is good? He satisfies your hunger with good things so that you are renewed! He guides you and satisfies your soul in hard times and good times with His Word that is sown deeply in your heart. He reveals to you the truths of your salvation. His living water springs up in you—to be an ever-flowing stream whose water never fails. You draw from the wells of your salvation! You draw from the Lord who is one with you in spirit!

 

“Have you been with me all this time and not known me?” Jesus asks each one of us.

 

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” Jesus taught in Matthew 5:6, “for they shall be filled. They shall be satisfied." 

May the Lord stir a deep hunger to really “know” Him. May you hunger to know His righteousness “is” your identity. It’s the very heart of your relationship with Him. Get into the Word. If you have no idea where to begin, ask the Holy Spirit to guide you. Ephesians 1 is a good place to start. Take your time. Don’t hurry. Mediate on each word. Allow the Spirit to reveal the Father to you.

Be renewed continually in your mind with the truths of your fellowship with God. Believe by faith in your heart that these truths are true. God is faithful. You shall know He is enough. You shall be satisfied and filled with Jesus. He is your way, your truth, and your life!

 

“God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:9).

 

Discerning You, Jesus

Sin and death are linked. One affects the other.

“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—” (Romans 5:12).

Sin is the root of sickness. No sickness strengthens, blesses, or enhances anyone’s life. If given the opportunity, sickness can lead to an untimely death. 

Adam’s sin released death, and sickness is a product of the power of death in us. If we can understand sickness as a fruit of sin, then we can understand that sin is the root that must be addressed. If sin, the root of sickness, can be destroyed, then sickness has no authority and no right to be in us.

There is an unholy union between sin and sickness. David understood this connection and prophesied man’s future deliverance from both the root of sin and the fruit of sickness.

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases” (Psalm 103:2–3).

Isaiah prophesied of Jesus: “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet, we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4–5).

In quoting Isaiah, Matthew revealed Jesus as the fulfillment of his prophecy.

“When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: ‘He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses’” (Matthew 8:16–17).

Healing didn’t end with Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. 

“And through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people” (Acts 5:12).

The Great Commission to go into all the world, preach the Gospel, and lay hands on the sick so they recover are promises of the church age (Mark 16:15–18). The spiritual gift of healing was given to equip the body of Christ for ministry (1 Corinthians 12:9).

If we can still receive forgiveness for our sins today, healing is also available for us to receive. Forgiveness and healing are inseparable in the Gospel message.

Jehovah Rapha is one of the redemptive names of God revealed in the Old Testament. His name is “the Lord our Healer.” He is also our Jehovah-Tsidkenu, which means “He is our righteousness.”

God’s redemptive names mirror His eternal nature. If healing were to vanish, God would cease to be God.

Jesus carried both the root of sin and the fruit of sickness to the cross so that we could be free of their power. When the power of sin was defeated, the power of sickness lost its authority. 

“Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed” (1 Peter 2:24).

Just as there is an unholy union between sin and sickness, there is a holy union between the forgiveness of sin and healing. 

In 1 Corinthians 11:29–30, Paul speaks of taking communion: “For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this reason, many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep.”

The holy union between forgiveness and healing is experienced when the Lord’s body is discerned. 

To discern the Lord’s body means recognizing and reflecting on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It calls for a repentant heart, acknowledging that His body was broken for us and His blood shed for us. When we don’t discern the Lord’s body properly—when we don’t recognize and acknowledge that Jesus gave His physical body not only for our sin, but also our sicknesses, sickness prevails. Some even die before their time. 

Jesus, I discerned You yesterday during communion. I experienced Your love for me on the cross. Deep within, I knew Your body broken for me and Your blood shed for me. As we took communion together, we were one bread and body in You. You are our head, our Jehovah-Tsidkenu and Jehovah-Rapha. You are my righteousness and my healer. Communion will never be the same. Discerning You, Jesus, is my healing of sin and sickness. My communion is in you.  By your stripes, I’m healed.

Unmasked

Do you allow the Holy Spirit the liberty to transform your mind? Do you mask your feelings and hold up a shield so others will not know that you, too, are human?  Where the Holy Spirit is, there is freedom—with God and also with those He sends to you. He wants to heal you, but He can’t if you hide behind self-imposed walls of protection. Christ has the power to set you free from the “old covenant veil” you hide behind so others can’t see your pain. 

"We are not like Moses, who put a veil over his face so the people of Israel would not see the glory, even though it was destined to fade away. But the people’s minds were hardened, and to this day, whenever the old covenant is being read, the same veil covers their minds so they cannot understand the truth. And this veil can be removed only by believing in Christ. Yes, even today, when they read Moses’ writings, their hearts are covered with that veil, and they do not understand. But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:13–17, NLT).

Before you knew Jesus, a veil covered your heart. You were not free. You were in a prison of pain, striving to be good enough—struggling to keep laws that had no chance of setting you free. Then Jesus destroyed that veil—that false protection which could never free you. He unchained you at the Cross when, in one moment, the veil that separated you from God was torn. Now you can run without hesitation into God’s presence. Jesus has opened access to the holy One who once judged you, but now sees you righteous because of His Son. Where there is no judgment, there is no need to hide. There is also no need to judge.

Don’t try to hide behind a mask from the Holy Spirit. It's impossible, and you only hurt yourself. He wants to transform the way you think until you understand with His mind—forgive with His heart—flow with His power—love with His Grace. Be free in Jesus. And don’t hide behind a veil from others. Let down your mask and be vulnerable with those God brings to you. Where Jesus is, you are free. You are healed. You are whole. You have nothing to hide. Nothing to gain. No agenda, but to love with His Grace. 

Where the Holy Spirit is, you have the liberty to open your mind and your heart to the truth of who you are in Jesus. He has made you righteous, so you are free to run into God’s arms. You have the openness to give yourself away. When you flow—unmasked—in His Grace, streams of living water flow, and against such fruit, no law Jesus died to fulfill has any power to destroy who you are in Him. Jesus will heal those He has entrusted to you. And also heal you. It’s Jesus who manifests healing in and through us when we surrender to Him. 

“So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image” ( Corinthians 3:18, NLT).

Be unmasked in His presence.

The Final Word

God’s Word is forever settled in heaven (Psalms 119:89).  It’s the final authority in all of His creation. When you believe the Word is the final authority and take it by faith as your final authority, sin, sickness, and all of darkness’s destruction must yield to it. You are healed, delivered, and restored as God’s original creation (Psalms 107:20). 

“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17 NKJV). 

Faith and the Word of God are synonymous. You can’t have faith without hearing the Word, and the Word can’t be heard without it building your faith. Hence, you can’t have one without the other.

 

The Word connects our healing with our hearing: 

“For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn so that I should heal them” (Matthew 13:15 NKJV). 

 

This verse reveals that when you understand the Word with your heart, you receive God’s healing. To hear the truth of the Word above what the world or anyone else claims, you must know and grasp the truths of who you are in Christ. You have the mind of Christ to understand these truths (1 Corinthians 2:16). And when you allow these truths to renew your mind, you believe (Romans 12:2).

 

Faith pleases God (Hebrews 11:6). When you take by faith the truths Jesus has purchased for you with His life, it pleases Him. Faith means nothing without the Word and has no power without the Word. An alive faith comes by “hearing” the Word (present tense) and not by just having heard the Word in the past. God rewards those who continually and diligently seek Him. When you seek God, you receive His Word (Matthew 7:8, John 1:1).

 

We experience this natural world through our senses—what we see, hear, feel, taste, or touch. The Word of God is the substance of things hoped for. It’s the truth of things not perceived by our senses (Hebrews 11:1). The Word of God is the spiritual realm of what can’t be seen but is true.

 

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23 NKJV).  

What we speak is what we will receive (Proverbs 18:21). When we speak of what we feel and experience as truth, we confess what is felt by our senses. But when we speak the truth of the Word—no matter how we feel or what our circumstances—we confess the truth of God’s supernatural realm. We speak the powerful truth of His unseen over what is seen. 

 

The world says to be afraid. God hasn’t given you a spirit of fear (2 Timothy 1:7). The world says you are sick and have no chance of healing. God says that by His stripes you were healed (1 Peter 2:24). The world says your needs won’t be met. The Word says He supplies all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ (Philippians 4:19). If you really believed the Word, wouldn’t you confess His truth instead of what the world or the enemy says about you? Wouldn’t you believe the Savior who died for you over the one who attempts to steal, kill, and destroy you?  

 

The atoning sacrifice of Christ not only gave you the forgiveness of your sins but also included the healing of your body from sickness and disease (Isaiah 53:4–5, 1 Peter 2:23–24, Matthew 9:5, James 5:15). 

 

The physical pain you feel, or the circumstances you face, are real. You can’t deny you have pain, or that something hurts you. But when you give something more authority in your life than God’s Word, you are giving the world and its reports more power than His Word. When you yield to the enemy’s lies instead of being renewed in your mind by God’s truth, you reap the results of the lies that have been sown (Galatians 6:7). 

 

Walking by faith and not by sight is believing in the unseen truth of God over what you sense. Take the measure of faith God has given you and renew your mind with His Truth (Romans 12:2–3). The Holy Spirit guides you into all of God’s truth—into the unseen of God’s spiritual realm that fills you with every spiritual blessing (John 14:17, 16:13, Ephesians 1:3).

 

“Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” (Isaiah 53:1 NKJV). 

When you believed in Christ and confessed what you believed, you received forgiveness for your sins (Romans 10:8-10). You receive healing the same way. You persevere in believing and speaking God’s good report for your life instead of any report of this sinful world. You are restored by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8).

 

God’s Word is truth, and He has the final word. Not knowing the Word keeps you from receiving what Christ has given you. But when you allow the Word to renew your mind, you are sowing God's promises in your heart. You receive thirty, sixty, or one hundredfold, according to how much you are investing in His Word.

Allow God’s Word to renew your mind until you believe His good report in your heart. Take it as your final Word. Receive His healing, deliverance, and provision by faith. When you know the truth, you have the power and the authority of God’s final Word that sets you free (John 8:32).

 

And what is God’s final Word? His name is Jesus, and His work is finished (John 17:4).