Did you know that there is an inseparable relationship between the degree to which a believer conquers all things and the degree of development of his relationship with God?

The single most important thing for us to be doing today is cultivating and developing a love relationship with our heavenly Father. Without that, anything else we attempt to do will be futile—it will be a work of the flesh; it will be hard, frustrating, and condemning.

It is only when we come to a clear comprehension that God is for us personally, that God is our Helper, and that we are more than conquerors only through Him, that we are really going to overcome.

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
(Rom. 8:37)

Getting to know the heavenly Father is the key to victorious Christian living!

This is the one thing that religion is missing. Religion has the form of godliness, but it has left out God. Charismatics are not exempt from this danger, for they, too, can have the form of being "religious" but still forget the Lord.

Even though a person may have been born again and filled with the Spirit, it is possible for him to go to Charismatic churches until Jesus comes again and yet not even know God.

A Father Or A Casual Friend
We need to develop a love relationship with the Father that involves more than just "having an experience." Just as a person can get married and never really get to know his spouse, a believer can be born again and even baptized in the Holy Spirit and never get to know the heavenly Father.

We need to realize that these spiritual experiences are for the purpose of bringing us into a cleaving relationship with the Father and begin to utilize them to this end.

We must also learn the specific steps involved in cultivating the fruit of love toward the Father until it grows and develops and matures so that we become like Enoch, walking with God day and night: "And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him" (Gen. 5:24).

Believers with this hope must have this testimony—that they pleased God (Heb. 11:5). According to Hebrews 11:6, no one can please God without having faith. Many people do not fully understand the close relationship between having faith in God and knowing Him through the development of the fruit of love.

There are Charismatic believers today who are going through a religious routine, but are not doing the one thing God called His church to do—have faith in Him, which requires trust in Him.

According to Psalm 9:10, a person must know God before he can trust Him: "And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee."

Therefore, to have faith in God actually means to know God.

There are believers today who are hearing teachings on faith, but who do not even know the Lord. Yet, they are being expected to trust God to move the mountains in their lives. The result of this is that they are experiencing failure, frustration and condemnation.

In Mark 11:22, Jesus first said, Have faith in God, before He taught in verse 23 on "speaking to the mountain" and in verse 24 on "praying and receiving."

Believers today should be taught verse 22 before they are taught verses 23 and 24. In order to thoroughly develop faith in God, we need first to come to know God. We do that by learning to cultivate the fruit of love toward Him.

To know Him is to love Him. To love Him is to trust Him. To trust Him is to have faith in Him—faith that moves mountains. It is then and only then that the heart receives its desires.

Source: A Call For Character by Greg Zoschak
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers