​I’m sure you’ve heard someone say Christianity is being in a relationship with Jesus Christ.  When I hear that I assume they are using relationship as a synonym for being in fellowship with God.  But there can be no relationship where there is no life.  So, being a Christian must start with the gift of life, the second birth Jesus Christ told Nicodemus he needed in John 3.  So, becoming a Christian starts with believing in Jesus Christ for everlasting life, John 3:16.   only then you can build a relationship with the Lord. 
 
Let’s stick with the word fellowship since it’s the word Luke, Paul and John used to describe the close relationship they shared with each other and God.  In Acts 2:42 Luke described the Apostles fellowship as sharing in meals and prayer.  That suggests fellowship is a friendship in which we share our life experiences with another.  That would Include the bad times as well as the good.  Paul spoke in Philippians 3:10 of knowing the fellowship of His (Christ’) suffering.  Fellowship is more than knowing someone.  The Apostle John actually pointed out specific aspects of being in fellowship with Jesus Christ.  He started with these in 1 John 1:5-7 This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.  That means fellowship starts with living (walk) by the same values the Lord holds as true.  
 
The rest of 1 John explains what it means to live by those values.  It includes confessing our sins to God (1John 1:9) Keeping His commandments (1 John 2:3), and loving one another (1 John 4:21).  That is the short list, so you need to read 1 John to find what I left out.  At its most basic level having fellowship with the Lord means learning about Him and opening up yourself to Him.  Sharing with Him stuff about yourself, your expectations and dreams in light of what He has for your future with Him.  Remember, He is God and you are not.  He made you, you didn’t make yourself (Psalm 100:3).  His principles and values take first place. 
 
Anyway, does that sound like your relationship with God?  Are you getting to know Him by reading your Bible?  It is after all God’s word.  It is His revelation of the things He wants you to know.  And He commands us to study it so we understand Him. 
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success (Josuha 1:8). 
Do you talk to Him, pray to Him?  Fellowship requires two-way communication.  How much time do you spend in Prayer?  1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. If you have believed in Jesus Christ for everlasting life then you’re indwelt by the Holy Spirit.  He is with you 24/7 so you might as well talk to Him.  And that is what prayer is talking to God. 
 
Bottom line is this.  If you truly want to have a relationship with Jesus Christ then believe what He says.  Read your Bible, all of it.  And pray a lot, like all the time.   

​John 3:14-15 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should] not perish but have eternal life.
In the previous post I asked what if a person who didn’t believe looking at the snake on the pole would save them from snake bite?  If they looked anyway would God cure them?  I said yes.  The reason being belief was not the condition God had stipulated.  The reason the Israelis were having this problem with snakes is because of their unbelief.  They once again were accusing the Lord of having brought them out into the wilderness to let them die.  Even though God been feeding them with Manna and providing them with water the whole time they had been wandering around out there. 
 
This plague of snakes was intended to drive home the point of belief being the only way to live.  Even a doubter would have to recognize the benefit of belief when those who looked lived and those who didn’t died.  That becomes apparent when you look at the account in Numbers 21.  Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived. 10 Now the children of Israel moved on and camped in Oboth Numbers 21:9 & 10.  God told them to either look at the snake and live or don’t look and die.  He then had Moses pull up stakes and move on down the road.  It was a take or leave it deal.    
 
John 3:15 & 16 models the offer of everlasting life after the offer of physical life in the Numbers 21 passage.  Only, this offer requires believing Jesus Christ is the source of everlasting life.  We know from the balance of Scripture that Jesus Christ was raised up on a pole, the cross, where He died for our sins satisfying God’s need for justice.  We also know He rose from the dead proving He has the ability to grant everlasting life.  The condition in His offer is to believe He will give you everlasting life.  Looking back on Jesus Christ’s death as historical fact is not the same as believing in Him for everlasting life.  The historical facts are the rationale behind His offer of life.  Those facts give us reason to believe He is the giver of life. 
 
Faith, the other word for belief, faith in His promise is all He requires to receive everlasting life.  There is nothing you must do or add to your faith in order to have that life.  Since nothing else is required the person who believes in Jesus Christ’s promise can know with absolute certainty they will be with Him in Heaven when they die physically.  Or as I like to say it transfer to their new heavenly body. 

​John 3:16 is probably the best-known verse in the Bible.  For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.  And it could also be one of the most misunderstood Bible verses because of the way some preachers have explained what it means to believe in Him.  The Greek word translated as believes is the word pisteuo which simply means believe.  It is a present active participle which describes what is needed to have everlasting life. And that is to believe Jesus Christ for everlasting life.
 
In the two verses before John 3:16 Jesus Christ gave us an illustration to show exactly what He meant by believe.   John 3:14-15 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should] not perish but have eternal life.  Verse 14 refers to an event in Numbers 21:4-9. 

Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the Way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way. 5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.” 6 So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died.  7 Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. 8 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived. Numbers 21:4-9
 
Notice that the cure for snake bite in that particular instance was to look at a metallic snake hanging on a pole.  Sounds crazy, right?  Well, it was crazy, but since it was God’s solution it worked.  Pay close attention to v. 9 – anyone who was bitten by a snake just had to look at the snake on the pole to be saved.   Even if they didn’t believe it would work if they still looked they lived!  The only requirement was they look.  If a person also employed traditional methods of treatment, just in case, as long as they looked, they lived.  End of story. 
 
Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, was lifted up on a pole called a cross.  God now says anyone who believes in Him for the cure of everlasting like gets everlasting life.  And just like the serpent in the wilderness situation there is only one condition for everlasting life, believe in Jesus Christ for life.  If you believe you live forever.  Believing is being persuaded something is true.  The thing about belief is it carries the realization that nothing else is needed.  End of story.  

How’s your retirement planning going?  If you are already retired how has your plan worked out?  I hope you’re doing a good job and things are going well for you.  Now, let me ask another question.  How is your post-retirement plan working?   You do have one, right?  After all, retirement will end but post-retirement lasts forever.  It only makes sense to do some investing in things that pay eternal dividends.   
 
OK, post-retirement planning sounds like I’m making light of a very serious matter.  But that is not my intention.  I want to draw attention to a very serious reality.  Each of us will experience a finite period of time on this planet.  I believe the average life time here in the USA stands at 78 years.  After that we will be someplace else forever.  How do you compare 78 years to forever?  Our country was founded about 250 years old or just 3.2 lifetimes ago.  The first European settlers hit these shores 440 years ago in 1585.  A mere 5.6 lifetimes in the past.  Both are time spans that don’t even show up on the scale of forever. 
 
So, where do you want to spend forever?  Jesus Christ the only man to ever come back from the grave has said there are only two places that will exist forever.  There is the New Heaven and Earth, commonly referred to as Heaven, and the Lake of Fire – Hell.  No one else has ever returned to tell us different.  Jesus Christ was able to do so because He is the eternal God who chose to also be born into the human race.  The eternal God exists as 3 persons sharing the same existence, the 3 in 1 unity.  Jesus Christ is one of the 3.   
 
There are people who don’t believe that, but their belief doesn’t change reality.  Jesus Christ proved who He is when He rose from the dead.  What belief can change is where you will spend forever!  Because Jesus Christ said whoever believes in Him for everlasting life will receive everlasting life.  A declaration of righteousness comes with that gift of life.  No one can enter the New Heaven and Earth without that declaration of righteousness. 
 
 John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
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John 11:25-26 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. 26 And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
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