Fellowship

1 John 1:1-10 Fellowship is a Christian buzz word, but what does it mean? I heard one definition: “Fellowship is fellows in the same ship on the sea of life.” This is not a bad definition, because we usually fellowship with people who are going on the same journey we are. There is nothing sweeter than Christian fellowship. If we miss fellowship with those in the body of Christ, we are risking falling away from the faith. As we learned in Hebrews, we are not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. So often when people leave a Christian fellowship or church, they do not attach themselves to another. When asked where they are going to church now, too often the response is, “I’m having church at home now.” If we cut ourselves off from the body of Christ, our Lord soon has nothing to direct in our lives. Jesus is the head of the body and if we detach ourselves from the body, we will be cut off from the wisdom and the mind of Christ. We will not be able to see how the body can function together under the headship of Jesus.

Satan loves to cut people off from the body of Christ because he knows then that they are open prey for him. If we choose to be loners in our walk with Christ, we have opened ourselves up to great deception. John clearly shares in this passage the importance of staying in fellowship. He says, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and 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, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (vv. 6-7).

We release ourselves from the effective cleansing of Christ’s blood if we refuse to fellowship with those who are walking in the light. When two of my boys attended college, they quit attending church. I shared with them I didn’t care whether or not they were in an institutional church, but they needed to be in a fellowship of believers that met together at least once a week.

When we fellowship on a regular basis with fellow believers, we become accountable to one another and we come out of hiding. When people get to know us, it is hard to hide our lives from them. The Christian walk is never a walk alone.

Lord, I pray for all those who have not found a regular place to fellowship weekly. Help them to attach themselves once again to the body of Christ so they will be able to abide in You daily.

READ: Daniel 7:1-28; 1 John 1:1-10; Psalm 119:156-176; Proverbs 28:23-24