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The Mystery of Prayer: Fellowship with God

For the past four days I've taught teenagers about prayer. They're at camp, having a blast with their friends, and I got the priviledge and challenge of interrupting their fun in order to direct their minds toward the Bible and what God has to say about communication with Him.

What was great about this week was that I was asked to teach the same material for four different groups over four days. This allowed me to teach, reevaluate, reconsider, dig deeper, and then teach again and again. I loved it! Normally I rush through a week, trying to dig into Scripture in order to teach a class and preach a sermon, and then I immediately begin thinking about next week. So, the opportunity to dig down into Scripture on the subject of prayer was refreshing and reinvigorating.

One of the passages that really came to life for me was 1 John 1:5-6:

"...God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another...."
Fellowship with one another? Who are the one and the other? I've always understood this verse to refer to the horizontal relationships within the church. But does it necessarily mean that? It seems from the context that he's referring to our relationship with God. If we walk in the light we have fellowship with God and he has fellowship with us. It's a two way fellowship! I get to hang out with the creator of the universe!

I want more of that.
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