Introduction

Many people have learned a lot ABOUT Jesus; Far fewer have gotten to KNOW Him.  Knowing Jesus is a really big deal because knowing Him IS eternal life. And if He doesn’t know you He will not answer your knock at the pearly gates.

You get to know someone when you spent time with them.  The more time you spend, the more you learn about them as a person, you understand their nature. You talk to them about their life experiences, you listen to their stories and begin to understand what makes them tick, what is important to them, and what they are trying to accomplish.  The more things you participate in together the more you learn about their skills and capabilities. Over time you learn to trust each other and work together to get things done. 

It is the same with Jesus: When you spend time alone with Him you get to know Him and better understand Him. When you get to know Him you can’t help but be drawn to Him by His acts of sacrificial love, and be positively influenced by His wisdom and guidance. When you have walked with Him through issues in your life, you learn to trust Him to be there for you as a valuable partner. The more time you spend, the more you see Him as a role model to emulate and trust Him as a partner to help you. The more you trust Him and apply His input, the more you become like Him. Becoming like Him enables you to be bold on judgement day.

“…we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He (Jesus) is, so are we in this world.”  – 1 John 4:17

Jesus did not invite you into a religion of distance. He invited you into fellowship and friendship.  Friendship is where transformation happens. When you know Jesus personally, grace stops being a concept and becomes like a river: a living flow of relationship, identity, power, and love.

“I have called you friends.” — John 15:15

Friendship with Jesus is not sentimental language. It is covenant reality: shared life, shared purpose, and shared nature forming inside you.

Why Fellowship With Jesus Is Essential

Knowing Jesus is a really big deal for many reasons. We will start with eternity, and then come back to the process of our spiritual journey here.  

Eternity/Heaven:

Let’s start with the end in mind:  If we know Jesus, we know God the Father and Eternal Life comes by knowing both of them.

“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.” – John 14:7

“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” – John 17:3

Jesus tells us point blank that many very religious people will call out His name at the pearly gates but they will not get in because He does not know them.

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven… Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” – Matthew 7:21-23

Him knowing you is not exactly the same as you knowing Him, but I submit to you that becoming friends with him on a personal level will result in both you knowing Him, and Him knowing you which is what He is telling us to do. 

The Spiritual Journey Here and Now

Knowing Jesus is critical for your spiritual journey.  If you don’t establish fellowship, Christianity drifts into one of the many traps.

Your inner soul builds structure, logic and reasoning to deal with life here and now and how we fit into eternity.

The basic high level structures include: 

• • Center / Lordship – Who or what sits at the center?
  • Identity – Who am I?
  • Worth / Value – Why do I matter?
  • Motivation – What drives my choices?
  • Purpose / Direction – What am I living for?
  • Behavior / Practices – How I live day to day?

If you establish a true partnership with God at the center,  your structures will build in the right sequence and alignment and move you in the right direction.

If you don’t put God into the true center, your self-centered inner nature will fill in the other structures to serve its needs, the intended structures becomes corrupted, the flow will be distorted and create problems.

 

Level	When God Is at the Center	When Self Is at the Center
Center / Lordship	God Himself (relationship, trust, love)	Self (control, fear, self-protection)
Identity	Born Again, New Creation “In Christ”	Built from behavior, role, or comparison
Worth / Value	Received (beloved, righteous by grace)	Earned, defended, to build up self
Motivation	Love, gratitude, trust	Fear, pride, guilt, approval to protect self
Purpose	Reflect Christ, love others, bear fruit	Self-preservation or self-validation
Behavior	Obedience flows naturally to serve	Religious activity or moral effort to justify decisions

When you understand the differences you will find that in the God centered flow – Grace flows smoothly down the structure. Our on effort is minimal because the alignment is correct.

In the self centered flow, The person must manufacture the structures that should have flowed in from God, and expend energy to maintain them.

This situation plays out in religious pursuits as well.  If our religious journey is not centered on a relationship with Jesus we will manufacture our  own structure, be prone to a corruption, distort the intended flow, and create problems.

 

Failure Mode	Inner Structure Corrupted	Problem Caused	Key Verse
Fear-Based Obedience	Center / Lordship	God is related to through fear rather than trust; obedience becomes self-protective	“Fear involves torment” — 1 John 4:18
Performance-Based Identity	Identity	Self is defined by achievement or failure instead of union with Christ	“Seeking to establish their own righteousness” — Romans 10:3
Religious Pride	Worth / Value	Value is established through knowledge or superiority rather than received love	“Knowledge puffs up” — 1 Corinthians 8:1
Legalism	Motivation	Rules replace love; Obedience becomes burdensome and joyless	“Bind heavy burdens” — Matthew 23:4
Religiosity	Purpose / Direction	Activity replaces fruitfulness; Rituals and motion continues but growth stops	“You have a name that you are alive, but you are dead” — Revelation 3:1
Moralism	Behavior – Disconnected from Identity	External behavior is managed while the heart remains unchanged	“Form of godliness… denying its power” — 2 Timothy 3:5
Hypocrisy	Behavior – Defending Identity/Worth	Projecting perfect image to cover insecurity; Double life develops	“Whitewashed tombs” — Matthew 23:27

These failure modes occur at the individual level and can impact your journey, they happen within key folks in individual churches and can significantly color the personality of that church,  and these failure modes shaped the journey of the founding fathers of many of the denomination we see today. 

The solution is always the same,  fellowship with Jesus.  

Friendship with Jesus restores the structure from the center outward:

• • Fellowship restores Lordship (trust replaces fear)
  • Union restores Identity (“in Christ”)
  • Grace restores Worth (received, not proven)
  • Love restores Motivation
  • Abiding restores Purpose (fruit, not motion)
  • Transformation restores Behavior naturally

“Abide in Me… he bears much fruit.” — John 15:5 (NKJV)

Fellowship is where knowledge becomes applied to real life. It’s where grace becomes tangible.

“Our fellowship is with… Jesus Christ.” — 1 John 1:3

Fellowship is also where darkness loses its leverage—because intimacy with Jesus puts everything into the light.

“…God is light and in Him is no darkness at all” — 1 John 1:5

What Does It Mean to Become Friends With Jesus?

Biblically, friendship is not casual proximity; it is entering into a beneficial relationship with aligned hearts.

Friendship with Jesus means:

• • Access: coming to Him one-on-one without hiding or bargaining
  • Abiding: remaining connected in an ongoing way, not just visiting occasionally
  • Listening: Actively seeking His input, Quieting the worldly noise and tuning to hear His input and guidance
  • Hearing: Understanding and letting His Word shape your inner thoughts and emotions
  • Alignment: choosing His will over self-centered motives and agendas in your life
  • Obedience from love: Responding to His sacrificial love, not to earn His love, but because you trust Him

“You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.” – John 15:14

That “if” is not a threat; it’s a definition. You will know you have achieved Friendship with Jesus when you choose to surrender yourself and trust Him in real life situations.

How We Are Changed by Knowing Jesus

Transformation is often misunderstood. Many people try to change behavior first as an act of obedience, they never address the core desires that drive behavior and either continue to struggle to resist and constrain their undesired behaviors or become frustrated and give up and declare sin inevitable. 

Scripture reveals the process necessary to get at the root of the issue in our inner nature. When we embrace Jesus’ finished work on the cross, we are born again and receive a new identity, when we embrace that new identity it produces new desires, and new desires produce new behaviors.  

This is why friendship with Jesus is transformative. A real active relationship keeps us anchored in who He is, what He has already done, and what He promises to do in you and through you, rather than what we are trying to do ourselves.

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation…” – 2 Corinthians 5:17

The transformation process has a clear flow: 

Jesus Finished Work → New Identity → Act In Faith → Receive Grace → Become Love

Let’s follow it step by step

1. Jesus Finished the Work — Transformation Begins With What Is Already Done

Before anything can change in you, something had to be settled for you.

Jesus did not die to give you a second chance at self-improvement. He died to end one life and begin another. At the cross, sin was dealt with, He paid the price for sin by allowing His body to be broken.  Through His innocent blood we are now reconciled with the Father. He came to restore what was lost through Adam, and His last words on the cross declared that He had completed that assignment.

“It is finished.”  – John 19:30

This matters because unfinished work produces striving, but finished work produces rest and trust. If you believe the work is incomplete, you will try to add your effort to it. If you believe it is finished, you will learn to receive what has been done and respond.

Transformation never flows from trying to finish what Jesus already completed. It flows from agreeing with Him.

2. The Old Identity Can Not Be Improved Or Managed, It Must Be Crucified and Buried

We are never told to fix, discipline, or rehabilitate the “old man”. It must be denied, cut off, crucified, buried, and put away.

“Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him…” –  Romans 6:6

This is where many believers struggle. We intellectually agree with receiving forgiveness but emotionally continue to identify with our old self—its failures, wounds, habits, and fears. As long as we do that, we keep trying to manage what God tells us to put to death.

Crucifixion means to cut off and kill our old self-centered motives. We must intentionally remove their authority in our life.

Burial means to lose access to them and their associated baggage, to put old patterns and behaviors behind us.

“We were buried with Him through baptism into death…”  – Romans 6:4

Putting off the old man is not pretending you don’t feel temptation; it is refusing to identify with it. You are no longer obligated to live from what Christ crucified.

3. We Are Raised Into a New Identity — We Are Not Trying to Create or Become One

The Christian life does not begin with “do better.” It begins with “you are raised with Christ.”

“Just as Christ was raised… even so we also should walk in newness of life.” –  Romans 6:4

Resurrection is not just a future promise—it is a present identity. You are not becoming righteous someday; you are learning to stand in and live from a position of righteousness already given to you.

“He made Him… to be sin for us… that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” – 2 Corinthians 5:21

This is a critical piece of the transformation puzzle: You need to understand that your righteousness is already paid for, all you need to do is stand in it. If you believe in Jesus and His work on the cross to restore you, you are born again into a new identity and can move forward in union with the Father covered by Jesus’ innocent blood.

4. Choosing to Put Off and Put On Is An Act of Faith  – It Makes Room For Grace

Once identity is clear, Scripture gives us a practical daily response for transformation:

“Put off… the old man.”
“Put on the new man.” – Ephesians 4:22–24

This is not behavior modification. This is a conscious and purposeful discission to agree and stand in faith.

“Putting off” is agreeing that Jesus paid the price for sin on the cross and that sin no longer defines you.

“Putting on” is choosing to live from a resurrection identity — born again, a new creaiton, innocent under Jesus blood.

We must act in Faith, speaking our intention to put off and put on,  then grace flows in to make the change – wisdom and power.

“Work out your own salvation… for it is God who works in you…” –  Philippians 2:12–13

When you choose patience instead of anger, humility instead of pride, love instead of self-protection, you are not manufacturing virtue—you are accessing grace already provided.

5. Grace Produces Transformation

Grace is divine empowerment to live differently.

“The grace of God… teaches us…” – Titus 2:11–12

Grace trains us away from self-centered love and into Christlike love.

As we focus on our new purpose – to bring glory to God in all we do,  Grace teaches us and empowers us to be transformed and become  prepared to serve the kingdom.

6. Love Is the Fruit, Not the Goal

Over time, something remarkable happens: desires change. What once felt costly begins to feel natural. What once required discipline begins to feel free.

This is how you know real transformation is happening:

“The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit…” – Romans 5:5

Love becomes the evidence of friendship with Jesus—not because you are trying to be loving, but because His life is expressing itself through you.

Why This Works

Finished work removes striving

Crucifixion/Burial ends old identity

Resurrection establishes new identity

Faith agrees with truth before feelings

Grace supplies power

Love emerges as fruit

This is why friendship with Jesus transforms you. You are not managing sin; you are living from union.

“Christ in you, the hope of glory.” – Colossians 1:27

How To: The Heavy-Lifting Power of Communion

Engage the ritual process of communion to achieve fellowship and rapid transformation

If you want a simple, repeatable pathway that forms real friendship with Jesus and drives real change, make this your center:

• • • Read Scripture relationally through the cross/resurrection lens
    • Take communion intentionally (even at reverently at home)
    • Put off / put on by faith in His finished work
    • Let grace produce love as fruit

1) Read Scripture Relationally (Cross + Resurrection Questions)

When you read, don’t only ask “what does this mean?” Ask “what does Jesus want to form in me?”

Use these questions every time:

What am I called to crucify? (what must die?)

What am I called to bury and put off? (what must no longer be carried?)

What am I called to put on by grace? (what must live?)

What am I being raised into—today—through faith?

“…If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” — Luke 9:23
“Be renewed… in your mind.” 

“…put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind”— Ephesians 4:22-23

2) Communion: Active Participation in His Finished Work

Communion is where truth becomes embodied faith—gratitude, identity, and grace all in one moment.

“Communion of the body…” — 1 Corinthians 10:16

“New covenant… in My blood.” — Luke 22:20 

Bread — Thanking Him for His Finished Work in His Body

“Jesus, thank You for Your finished work on the cross.
Thank You for submitting Your body to that abuse—bearing my sins on Your back.
By Your stripes I am healed.
I choose to follow you: My old man with its sinful desires is hereby crucified with You.
I put off the old self—self-centered love, fear, pride, lust, control, and unbelief.
I no longer identify with sin and my old ways – I bury them in the grave with you.”

“Bore our sins… in His body.” — 1 Peter 2:24
“…By whose stripes I am healed” — 1 Peter 2:24

Cup — Thanking Him for His Finished Work in His Blood

“Jesus, Thank You for living a sinless life and sacrificing that life to restore me.
Your blood speaks better things for me—so I humbly stand under it.
Forgiven and righteous by Your finished work.
I stand in righteousness, covered by Your innocent blood—
forgiven, holy and blameless in the Father’s eyes.
I put on the new man by grace and will walk in love.”

“Speaks better things…” — Hebrews 12:24 
“Holy and blameless…” — Colossians 1:22 
“Righteousness… of God.” — 2 Corinthians 5:21

Other Best Practices

1) Make This a Recurring Rhythm, Not a Reaction

Don’t wait for crisis. Build friendship through consistency.

“Abide in Me.” — John 15:4

Practice: a simple daily pattern: Scripture → Communion posture → Put off/put on choices.

2) Put Off / Put On With Specificity

Vague repentance produces vague change. Make it concrete.

Put off (examples): self-pity, offense, control, lust, harshness, fear, people-pleasing.
Put on (examples): humility, forgiveness, courage, purity, gentleness, patience, truth.

“Put on… tender mercies.” — Colossians 3:12

3) Obey From Identity, Not for Identity

You don’t obey to become loved—you obey because you are loved.

“We love… because…” — 1 John 4:19

Practice: when tempted, say: “That isn’t who I am anymore.” Then act accordingly.

4) Let “Love” Be the Measure of Friendship

Friendship with Jesus will produce love—first in motives, then in actions.

“Love one another.” — John 13:34

5) Keep Fellowship Clean (No Hiding)

When you miss it, return quickly—don’t spiral into shame.

“Draw near…” — James 4:8

Do I Know Jesus as a Friend?

Use this series of questions to diagnose your relationship — not to condemn yourself.

Relationship Signals

Do I talk with Jesus consistently, or only in crisis?

Do I quiet myself and listen for His input, or do i just beg for blessings?

Do I read Scripture to meet Him and get to know Him, or just to collect facts?

Do I experience conviction that leads to change, or do I feel shame that leads to hiding?

Do I raise up Jesus work on the cross and take communion with gratitude? + a new identity? + faith?

Do I practice put off / put on every day?

Do I see increasing love, humility, peace, patience as I move forward month over month?

Warning Signs

My faith is mostly concepts and ideas with little fruit

Obedience feels like pressure, not a pursuit from my heart in response to God’s love

Jesus is distant, way up in heaven somewhere (Rather than always present right here with me) 

I am working hard to improve myself (rather than submitting myself to Jesus)  

I default to self-centered love (self-protection, self-justification)

I avoid Jesus when I fail instead of running to Him

“He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” — 1 John 2:4 (NKJV)

Where to Learn More

Scripture Study Tracks

Friendship / Abiding

John 14–17 

Union with Christ: crucify / bury / raised

Romans 6–8

Colossians 2–3

Galatians 2–5

Putting off / putting on

Ephesians 4–6

Colossians 3

Communion

Luke 22

1 Corinthians 10–11

Hebrews 12

Excellent Preacher/Teacher Videos

The Power of Communion — Dan Mohler

The Finished Work of Christ — Dan Mohler

Faith and the Finished Work of Christ — Dan Mohler

The ONLY Way to Become LOVE — Dan Mohler

Identity Crash Course — Dan Mohler

Identity 101 Playlist (multi-part)

Suggested Topics to Search/Study

“union with Christ”

“righteousness by faith”

“renewing the mind”

“abiding and fruit”

“communion and covenant”

Call to Action

Don’t try to be “spiritual.” You’re being invited into friendship with the One who finished the work.

Start small, but start today:

Read a short passage (John 15, Romans 6, Colossians 3).

Ask the crucify/bury/raise questions.

Take communion intentionally—bread and cup—with gratitude and identity.

Put off one specific old pattern. Put on one specific expression of love.

Repeat the same thing tomorrow.

Over time, you won’t just try to be loving — you will become love, because Jesus is forming Himself in you.

“To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” — Colossians 1:27