"Fellowship with the Father"

By David Hobbs

God has always desired relationship with mankind. Therefore it’s sad that most Christians couldn’t explain the meaning of I John 1:3 [KJV]--truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ, or what Jesus meant when He said to the backslidden church in Rev. 3:20 [Living Bible]--If anyone hears me calling him and opens the door, I will come in and fellowship with him and he with me. 
The 1 John passage has the idea of partnership—our partnership is with the Father and the Son, like we are partners in the family business. We’re partners in the business by sharing in the work of the gospel and building up the Kingdom, but also part of the family in the family business. 
We don’t go home at 5 o’clock until the next day at 8. We go home with the Father and the Son for a loving, family meal and quality time together in the evening. This is the meaning in the second passage, from Rev. 3, where Jesus says if we hear Him knocking and open the door of our hearts, He will come in and share a meal with us—the family sharing sweet fellowship times together. 
Both are part of our calling and part of God’s desire for us. He doesn’t save us because He feels sorry for us and doesn’t want us to go to hell. While it’s true He saves us from something, it’s much more true He saves us to something: to relationship with Him. 
This has always been on God’s heart, since man was first created. In Gen. 2, after God created man, he then created all the animals and brought them to Adam to see what he would name them. Most Christians think their prayer/fellowship time with God consists in asking Him for things. When they hear the preacher exhorting them to spend more time in prayer, they think that they will have to expand their prayer lists so they can pray longer. But God didn’t bring the animals to Adam so Adam would ask God what to name them, He wanted Adam to name them—part of partnering with God in the family business. 
We all know about God meeting with Adam in the cool of the day. That was the other part of the equation—the sup-with-him-and-he-with-Me part. Many pastors get in on only the family business part. They pray to the Lord for a word to preach, they pray for their members, and for wisdom to counsel, diligence to protect and lead, etc. and are grateful that God answers them. But unless they maintain their own vibrant prayer life/relationship with God, they can easily get too busy and miss out on the family part of God’s family business; they become little more than hired employees in God’s business and not one of His sons or daughters. 
Jesus’ disciples were all trained in the family business, but more than that they spent much quality time with Him that made them devoted followers from the heart. 
We need to recapture that ability to spend quality time with Jesus in our day. It’s a lot more than running through our prayer list every day and praying over our meals and ministries.