The Mount Everest Of Christian Experience - The One Year Unlocking the Bible Devotional

Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.   1 John 1:3

Nearing the conclusion of our journey through the Bible story is like trekking through the Himalayas. We’re surrounded by breathtaking snow-covered mountain peaks, so the moment we look at one and think, That’s magnificent! we see another that’s even higher! We’ve seen many breathtaking peaks in the Bible story, but now we come to the highest of them all. Fellowship with God is the Mount Everest of Christian experience—our greatest privilege on earth; our highest joy in heaven!

At the beginning of the Bible story, God breathed life into Adam. So in his first moment of conscious existence, Adam stared into the face of God. God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and visited them there, taking on a visible form and walking with them. God was cultivating a relationship with them.

Fellowship is sharing a common life and a common purpose. It is “doing life together,” and in the Garden, Adam and Eve “did life” with God. But our first parents chose the knowledge of evil, breaking fellowship with God. So they were alienated from God and placed outside the Garden. God did not come to them or talk with them. But that severed relationship was not the end of the story. From the day sin entered the world, God has been at work to bring men and women back into fellowship with himself.

God gave his people two wonderful gifts that make this possible. First is the sacrifices. God is holy, and if sinful men and women were to have fellowship with him, something would have to be done about sin. The sacrifices pointed us toward what God would do by sending his Son, Jesus Christ, to deliver us from sin’s condemnation. We are saved from our sins for a life of fellowship with God.

Then God gave us the commandments. God saves us from sin in order to bring us into a life in which we love him. We reflect that love by obeying him as we honor our parents and remain faithful in marriage, truthful in speech, prompt in our payments, and content with what God has given us. We are saved for a life of fellowship with God.

For further reading, see 1 John 1