…truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:3)

Genuine Christian spirituality is fellowship with God, no more, no less. John the Apostle wrote his letters, and his Gospel for this declared purpose: that we might share in he fellowship that the Apostles, themselves, had obtained. This is born out in the full declaration of this verse.

That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:3)

Mankind has an acute need of spirituality. Man was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27); and here is a sizable aspect of the understanding of that mystery: ‘God is a Spirit…’ (John 4:24)

You are a spirit. You’ve got a body [form], and a soul [intellect/ emotion/ willpower] just as God has. Yet your vital essence is your spirit; as a spirit (in the image of God) you have a vital need for spirituality. Obtaining deeper levels of spirituality opens us to spiritual things.

But what does that mean? As I said above, true spirituality is fellowship with God.

And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. (John 17:3)

Fellowship with the Father, and His Son is the ultimate bedrock foundation of spirituality. Not only so, bit it is also the utmost depth of True spirituality. And here I make a distinction of ‘True spirituality.’

There is a modern pop-culture spirituality – just as there always have been percieved paradigms of spirituality – which combines any number of factors into a systematic perspective; it incorporates theology, experience, and mythology into a presumed essence of understanding the spiritual.

But True Christian spirituality is simple fellowship with the Father, and the Son through, and through; from begining to end. If it is more than this, it is witchcraft, if less it is carnality. Eternal life (our life in the spirit) is to know God [personally].

I may be more relatable to readers if I used the term ‘spirit realm’ in order to begin to describe what I’m talking about, however, I tend to avoid the use of that term these days precisely because it has been used constantly and has become part of our pop-culture form of spirituality (it also has misleading connotations). There certainly are demonic principalities and powers (Eph. 6:12), as well as angels and a real need for spiritual warfare. Yet even our warfare is from the place of fellowship with God.

In the human quest for spirituality all manner of idolatry and witchcraft has been imagined and put into practice. In times past God winked at this, but now calls all men everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30).

In the contemporary Christian quest for spiritual vitality a number of things have taken the place of the simple fellowship with God through Christ as our spiritual pursuit.

The word declares plainly that in these last days (for we are in the last days) that even those of the church will be turned to fables (2 Tim. 4:1-4). Those days are not near, but upon us now; the church has swallowed a lot of ado about spirituality which ammounts to nothing more than fables, and their teachers declare them [these fables] to be biblical, even as the prophecies also predict.

Would you be spiritual? Perhaps you should study ancient texts that aren’t scipture? Perhaps we can learn from ancient Jewish myths (Titus 1:14), like that of the Nephilim? Perhaps there are scholars who can show us some ancient knowledge long forgotten, that if only we knew, we would have a deeper, and more profound spiritual insight!

OR perhaps the God of the universe is willing to commune with you, and teach you all things NOW, like Jesus said (John 14:26).

Have you ever noticed that ALL of the declared signs at the outpouring of the Holy Spirit were prophetic in nature?

As Peter quoted Joel in Acts 2:

And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. (Acts 2:17 & 18)

This was the express teaching of Christ, Himself: that the Holy Spirit’s principal job in the believer is to teach us (John 14:26), revealing the things of God to us, showing us things to come (John 16:13-15). The prophetic (hearing God speak to us) is a vital part of our fellowship with Him – can one have a relationship with someone who does not speak to them? Can two walk together except they be agreed? (Amos 3:3)

Jesus also specified that those who know Him hear Him speak:

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: (John 10:27)

The Baptism of the Holy Spirit is given so that we can have greater fellowship with the Lord so that we can be fruitful witnesses – co-laboring with Him.

My life consists – to a very large degree – of pursuing a deeper, and more consistent fellowship with God. If the promises of scripture are True; He will teach us (John 14:26), guide us into ALL Truth, and show us things to come (John 16:13). Thus everything we need to know of the ‘spiritual realm’ will be revealed to us by the Holy Ghost through simple fellowship with God. The Lord will direct, and guide those who walk in fellowship with Him.

If you seek a deeper fellowship, 1) shut off the other voices speaking to your soul (the media: TV, facebook, youtube (I no longer own a TV, myself and don’t even listen to the radio on my way to work – I had rather fellowship with the Spirit of God than be entertained; it also helps me not to get caught up in the constant social and political turmoil, nor get recruited to bandwagons. Simply shutting off worldly voices (I stay informed mind you) liberates me from to heed Christ in a way that is impossible otherwise due to all of the mental and emotional distractions our society gets caught up on.)) and 2) meditate on God’s word.

We don’t become more spiritual through angel-ology – in fact, if we look at past examples of Kabbalists (who have extensive studies on the names of angels) and the Catholic church who got hitched up in that, it becomes pretty clear that it is a root of idolatry that then came to permeate their much of their faith. Likewise we have a modern Christian pop-culture spirituality where people get hitched up on things happening ‘in the spirit realm’ and attach spirituality to objects and places (idolatry).

I went to a local church meeting not long ago where a chaufar (ram’s horn trumpet) was taken out and touted as an anointed… thing. The lady who had the trumpet announced that she would ‘play it over’ anyone who wanted the blessing of it after the service, upon which offer she was asked to play it then and there over the church congregation. She took it out, and played it well enough… but the Spirit of God wasn’t in it, and anyone in fellowship with the Spirit of God would have known that, but a few ladies (the minister’s wife and some standing with her) roiled about as though it was deeply powerful spiritually – as though they getting drunk in the Spirit. It was an abominable mockery of the Spirit of God.

I don’t know how anyone could see that event and not percieve it as idolatry that they treated a trumpet as though it were intrinsically anointed, but they don’t and if you point it out to them they call you ‘religious.’ But this experience is sadly not isolated. As we had come at the invitation of an acquaintance who was discipling under the guest speaker, we stayed through the charade and left only after the speaker began preaching from the ‘Passion translation.‘ (Rev. 22:18) Rather than loving God’s word, this pop-culture spirituality changes God’s word to suit them; beloved, do not be decieved by those who are changing God’s word. Brian Simmon’s re-write of scripture markets itself as more spiritual, but tramples the Truth. God’s Word doesn’t need to conform to our emotional desires (Passion); in fact just the opposite: we need to be conformed to the Word, and when we are, then we will be able to discern God’s will (Rom 12:2).

These are fulfilling the prophecies of false teachers in the last days, and fables abound.

Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know it is the last time. (1 John 2:18)

Fellowship with God is True spirituality. Your spiritual senses become awakened when you learn to abide in Christ.

Paul teaches on becoming a spiritual man in 1 Corinthians 2, what is the key to spirituality (becoming a spiritual man [/person]) according to Paul?

Now we have recieved, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God [the Holy Ghost]; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teacheth, BUT WHICH THE HOLY GHOST TEACHETH; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. (1Cor. 2:12, 13)

When we recieve fellowship with God through putting faith in Jesus Christ’s sacrifice for us on the cross, we have access to the mind of God, Himself (1 Cor. 2:16). There is nothing more spiritual than fellowship with God – think of it: to have God’s very Spirit dwelling within you, longing to teach, instruct and have fellowship with you!

So much so that Paul, in the same passage declares that the hidden mysteries of the ages are now revealed to those who abide in fellowship with God’s Spirit:

9 As it is written, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. 10 BUT GOD HATH REVEALED THEM UNTO US BY HIS SPIRIT: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God. (1 Cor. 2:9 & 10)

And as Paul also taught the Colossians, warning them against spirituality and spiritual philosophy beyond the simple fellowship of Christ declared:

In whom [Christ] are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

And this I say, lest any man beguile you with enticing words. … As ye have recieved Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: … Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deciet, and after the tradition of men, after rudiments of the world and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:

As I mentioned in an earlier post, before the electoral college cast their votes affirming the Biden win of the American presidential elections, swarthes of Christians have been prophesying that Trump would win the second term. I mention it here because these false prochecies have their origin in the paradigm of our modern pop-culture spirituality that I’m speaking of. We have been so busy listening to fables that we allowed ourselves to get wrapped up in the political, and followed the voiced that we WANTED to believe, rather than the voice of Truth.

(Even up until the weekend; at least one well known TV minister was apparently prophesying that God would intervene specifically in the case of the Texas lawsuit and SCOTUS. But SCOTUS turned down the lawsuit.)

Be assuered, God did not speak to all those who have been prophesying that Trump will be re-elected. God does not mislead us. In fact as I pointed out, the appropriate response to such as prophesy a thing that does not come to pass is given to us in Deuteronomy 18:22. We cannot substitute what we want for what God is saying.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts [desires] shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears. (2 Tim. 4:3)

These things should lead us corporately to repent, and find what IS the mind of God; don’t seek to others who call themselves prophets, but enter into fellowship fellowship with God whose Spirit will lead you into all truth.

But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though hey had none;

And they that weep as though hey wept not; and they that rejoice, as though hey rejoiced not; and they that buy as though they possessed not;

And they that use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of his world passeth away. (1 Cor. 7:29-31)

But:

That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:3)