Tag Archives: fellowship

A WALK THROUGH THE LORD’S PRAYER – 8

Prayer, ,

Jesus’ model prayer is not intended to be a mantra to be repeated mindlessly like the pagans do, but a framework around which, by allowing its principles to guide us, we build our fellowship with the Father and with His Son. 

Jesus has given us the main principles that should concern us in our relationship with the Father. Of course, life is far more complicated than these considerations. However,  we must never be overburdened by the details that so often are distractions from the real issues that should occupy our attention. 

Let’s summarise what Jesus  taught His disciples to focus on as they grew in their relationship to and fellowship with the Father. 

I use these two words, “relationship” and “fellowship” purposely as distinct from one another. 

“Relationship” refers to a settled state, based on our new birth, through the Holy Spirit. Through God’s grace, we have been moved out of slavery into God’s family as His sons and daughters. Once God has reinstated us, we can never be “unborn”. We can never lose our status as children of God…

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”

‭‭1 John‬ ‭3‬:‭1‬-‭2‬ ‭NIV‬‬

…even if we sin…

“My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”

‭‭1 John‬ ‭2‬:‭1‬-‭2‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Since we are sons and daughters of the Father, we need not do anything to cultivate our relationship with Him. 

However, our fellowship with Him implies our daily walk with Him in trust and obedience, in honesty and humility. We must keep the lines of communication open with Him by not allowing unbelief to lure us away from our fellowship with Him into independence and sinful behaviour. 

“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

‭‭Micah‬ ‭6‬:‭8‬ ‭NIV‬‬

What can we do to maintain our fellowship with God? 

“We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.”

‭‭1 John‬ ‭1‬:‭3‬ ‭NIV‬‬

The fellowship we share with each other in the body of Christ is based on our faith in Jesus, who He is and what He did.  We share that same common ground with the Father because we all have the same relationship with Him through Jesus. 

So, John says, we must maintain our fellowship with the Father, the Son, and with each other by our shared faith in Jesus and our honest and transparent lives with one another. He calls this “walking in the light.”

“If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out 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, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”

‭‭1 John‬ ‭1‬:‭6‬-‭7‬ ‭NIV‬‬

First, then, we don’t only share this fellowship through our faith in Jesus and all He is and does, but we also have fellowship with one another through our shared our interests and concerns in prayer. 

Jesus taught us how to pray by giving us the guidelines that keep us focused on what is important to Him.   

Praying together is a powerful force in the world. God knew that unity had power when He scattered the people in the ancient world because they acted together in rebellion against Him. 

“Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.”

‭‭Genesis‬ ‭11‬:‭4‬-‭6‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Second, what are the main issues around which we share fellowship in prayer?

God is “our Father”, we are His family. We approach Him freely as His children. He is Father but He is holy. We give Him the reverence, respect, awe, and honour due to Him. We give our attention to what is most important to Him, His kingdom and His will on earth. We forgive one another to keep our fellowship with each other open and uncluttered by guilt and grudges. We take responsibility for our own wrongdoing and and ask for help in dealing with the sin nature that leads us astray. 

Since the greatest commandment in the New Covenant summarises and simplifies the 613 laws of the Old Covenant…

“And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.”

‭‭1 John‬ ‭3‬:‭23‬ ‭NIV‬‬

… it stands to reason that our unity be built around our faith in and obedience to Jesus as Lord and our love for one another as fellow members of His family. In this togetherness, we share His heart for the world, His kingdom on earth and our part in administering His kingdom in partnership with Him. 





WALK IN THE LIGHT!

Christian Life, ,

1 John 1:7 NIV
[7] “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”

We have recently explored the reasons for much of the chaos that is happening in our country and, indeed, everywhere in the world. Leaders are telling stories that lead people into false thinking and false action based on lies. I’m fact, lying leaders are everywhere, both in the secular and the religious world, peddling their stories to suit their own agendas or to satisfy and spread their own prejudices.

To use the biblical expression, they “walk in darkness” because their evil desires and motives are hidden in the stories they tell. To “walk”, in this sense, is to conduct one’s life in keeping with the narrative one believes. If someone believes the narrative that he is better than others, in keeping with his belief, he will act accordingly, be it to belittle or insult others or even to get rid of them.

The kingdom of God, by stark contrast, is also a realm, though unseen, as real as the realm of evil and the Evil One in which we live. God’s kingdom, the way He governs the seen and unseen realms, is based on real truth, not the so-called “truth” that is convenient for each human individual. Real truth is objective. Objective truth never changes because it originates in God who is the embodiment of truth, regardless of whether we believe it not.

John’s narrative is, “God is light!” What is light? Light is, among many other things, the energy that reveals everything as it is. Therefore, God’s nature is to reveal and expose everything as it is, both good and evil.

To walk in the light, as our Scripture requires, means that we align our lives with God’s unchanging standard of doing the right thing regardless of whether it is convenient or not. God always reveals everything, good and bad, without partiality.

When we flick a light switch, the energy of electricity powers a light source to reveal what is in that space without impartiality. If the space is clean or dirty, the light will reveal its state. The light does not make the space clean or dirty. It simply reveals what it is.

When each person in the fellowship of God’s people, in families, or communities of people anywhere, are living in the light of God’s scrutiny by obeying His instructions, harmony prevails. We only keep bumping into each other when we “walk” in darkness.

The goal of our togetherness as believers in God’s family is fellowship… being one with the Father and the Son, through the work of the Spirit in us, living together with people in love and unity. The only way to maintain the fellowship created by the Spirit, is to “walk in the light.”

“Walking in the light” has two purposes, to reveal and get rid of whatever “darkness” is hindering harmony, and to keep us in step with God by walking together in the same direction.

We walk in darkness when we take care of ourselves at the expense of others. We walk in the light when we take care of others at our expense.

What happens when we walk in darkness? Our own desires clash with other people’s desires. The outcome? Chaos!

The solution? Allow the light of God’s truth to expose the darkness of our selfishness. In humility, we acknowledge where we have gone wrong. This kind of honesty, taking responsibility for our wrong attitudes and actions, constitutes transparency…walking in the light.

In this environment of transparency, the blood of Jesus does its work like a winsdscreen wiper. His blood, the forgiveness of sin, automatically keeps us clean and free from guilt.

To maintain this fellowship of the saints together, in harmony with God, transparency requires humility, honesty, and….most of all, grace, grace to admit wrong, to accept help, and to return to the way lit by God’s truth. Grace celebrates weakness and acknowledges God’s power to overcome selfishness. These are the ingredients that make walking in the light possible on our way, together with Jesus, to the eternal realm of the Father.

PARTNERS WITH GRACE

Bible Study, ,

Philippians 2:1-2 NLT
[1] “Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate? [2] Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose.”

Look at these qualities that foster
unity!

Encouragement…comfort…
fellowship…tenderness and compassion…all so real in God’s people but so foreign to people who don’t know Jesus. These are “kingdom” characteristics that are formed in people who have been joined to Jesus by faith and are growing in maturity…the love and unity the Holy Spirit produces.

Not only did Paul desire and call for all the aspects of partnership we have already explored, but he also pointed them to partnership which grew from within. The inward qualities of a believer, the fruit of the Holy Spirit’s transformation, made unity possible.

It’s all about attitude. This is what Meta says about attitude.

“Attitude refers to a person’s perspective, outlook, or disposition towards something, often influenced by their emotions, experiences, and values. It encompasses their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, shaping how they interact with and respond to various situations, people, and environments.”

That’s comprehensive, isn’t it! Paul points to the importance of the attitude that shapes the way God’s children navigate the world and relationships with people, with all their trials, temptations and challenges.

God’s grace has made this transformation possible. Without Him, people are doomed to live selfish, aggressive, and hostile lives, always pleasing and protecting themselves at the expense of others. Grace has freed us from the “me first” attitude that is self-destructive. “Ingrown eyeballs” give way to the attitude Jesus displayed…the self-giving love that made salvation possible.

The attitude of God’s children focuses on being and doing whatever builds others up. When believers foster this all-encompassing attitude, and partner with the character of Jesus in their hearts, they will find no place for selfish ambition and self-gratification in their relationships with others.

How important, then, that we apply this truth to ourselves. God has given us the priceless gift of His Spirit to align us with all the fruits of His grace. Not only has He provided the Spirit’s presence and power to transform our attitudes but He has also given us the supreme of all examples to follow…Jesus Himself, the epitome of perfect obedience and unselfish giving!

There is a particular challenge for preachers, teachers, and writers of the Word. How easy to become hypocrites by reading and expanding on God’s Word for the benefit of others without taking heed to what the Word is saying. We can eagerly press others into obedience without obeying ourselves!

There are no trials and tests in life beyond us if we heed God’s promise of enough grace for every situation. With the strength of His grace, we can be overcomers in our struggle against the pull of the flesh.

Let me illustrate. I have an elderly friend who struggles with memory loss. As her condition worsened, I became increasingly impatient and irritated with her. Try as I did to overcome my attitude, , I left her after each encounter feeling guilty and ashamed of falling repeatedly into the same trap. I cried out for God’s grace but it seemed that God was deaf.

After weeks of struggling with myself, something changed in me. The struggle was over. Grace began to free me from myself. What was difficult became easy. I began to interact with her with compassion and patience. God’s love in me which had evaded me for so long, began to change my attitude towards her.

You see, I realised that partnering with God’s grace is real. It cannot happen through self-effort. I think the Lord allowed me to struggle for a while to show me that it was He, through His Spirit in me, that made the change not me by the power of my self-will.

So, in all the issues of our lives, this partnership with the Holy Spirit is our only hope of obeying the Lord and producing the fruit that is evidence of God’s Spirit at work in us.

WHAT IS THE LOCAL CHURCH?

Apologetics,

Isn’t it amazing how people, we humans, have the knack of changing God’s Word to suit us. Take, for example, the way we identify church groups, denominating them by theological criteria…Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican…etc. We immediately associate people belonging to these “denominations” as either subscribing to infant baptism and confirmation versus believer’s baptism, hierarchical church government versus congregational rule, or even “born-again, Spirit-filled believers” versus the rest! There are other, lesser differences that give denominations their unique identity, as in today’s world, independant groups who think they have a handle on the truth but, in the end, these are artificial, non-biblical, superimposed differences.

The New Testament puts the church into only two categories according to its GEOGRAPHY, the local church and the universal or global church. So, churches were identified by where they were situated in the known world of that day.

Jesus is head of the universal church, His body which, like a human body, is made up of cells, which are the local churches…all believing the same truth, all connected to and living under the authority of the same Lord. Unlike the human body whose cells function differently, the cells of the global church have similar functions.

Some local churches today, unfortunately, have lost or ignored the pattern of the biblical church. Some are run as businesses, others as clubs, still others as military operations, with strict hierarchical orders, depending on the bent of the leadership.

No so the church of the Lord Jesus Christ! His church is made up of His sons and daughters doing life together under the loving leadership of its Head. Each member is a responsible and willing partner in the harmonious togetherness of the whole.

Let’s examine three of the main functions of the local church.

First, the nature of the church is a FAMILY . Every member of the local church is a son or daughter of God, born from above by the Spirit of God and adopted as full members into His divine family. Every member worships the same Lord, believes and practises His Word, and is connected to every other member by the “glue” of the same Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:13 NLT
[13] “Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit.”

Jesus is both head and elder brother in this family. In the Hebrew family, the eldest son, the first-born, is responsible for the wellbeing of all the “second-borns”, and the family as a whole. As the “priest” of the family, he represents the family to the father and the father to the family. So, Jesus, our elder brother, represents the Father in all the doings and dealings of the family and us to the Father. God chose Him to be the head and leader of His family because He was qualified to be High Priest of the family.

Hebrews 5:5, 8-9 NLT
[5] “That is why Christ did not honor himself by assuming he could become High Priest. No, he was chosen by God, who said to him, “You are my Son. Today I have become your Father.”…
[8] Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered. [9] In this way, God qualified him as a perfect High Priest, and he became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him.”

Hebrews 2:10 NLT
[10] “God, for whom and through whom everything was made, chose to bring many children into glory. And it was only right that he should make Jesus, through his suffering, a perfect leader, fit to bring them into their salvation.”

This new family overrides all human family ties.

Matthew 12:48-50 NLT
[48] “Jesus asked, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” [49] Then he pointed to his disciples and said, “Look, these are my mother and brothers. [50] Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother!”

We become members of God’s family by adoption through the new birth.

Ephesians 1:5 NLT
[5] “God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.”

Romans 8:14-16 NLT
[14] “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. [15] So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” [16] For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.”

Jesus is the head, elder brother, High Priest, and blueprint for every member of His family.

…made like us…

Hebrews 2:11, 14, 17 NLT
[11] So now Jesus and the ones he makes holy have the same Father. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters…

…died for us…

[14] Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death.

…represents us…

[17] “Therefore, it was necessary for him to be made in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God. Then he could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people.”

… and we are being remade like Him…

Romans 8:28-29 NLT
[28]”And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. [29] For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the FIRSTBORN among many brothers and sisters.”

Togetherness is the hallmark of the family, bound by love and the strong family ties of new birth and belonging. So, the whole New Covenant presents the blueprint for the life of love and unity in the kingdom, the solid foundation of our family connectedness. It’s this real difference between the church and the world that alerts unbelievers to true power of the gospel.

John 13:34-35 NLT
[34] “So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. [35] Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

John 17:23 NLT
[23] “I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.”

Second, this divine family expresses itself through FELLOWSHIP.

What is fellowship?

Worldly clubs and organisations sometimes classify their togetherness as” fellowship” because they share the same goals and objectives. Their “fellowship” is based on ideas and philosophies external to themselves. Most often, their goals and objectives are not the driving force of their lives but rather some “after-hours” activity they engage in.

No so the church!

John teaches us about fellowship in his first letter.

1 John 1:2-3 NLT
[2] “This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. [3] We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.”

Fellowship in the church begins in the heart and is the heart of its togetherness. Real fellowship has Jesus as its root…understandimg and believing who He is and what He did, according to the Bible’s evidence, and being rooted by faith in Him as the source of life itself. Fellowship with one another is based securely on “Christ in us, the hope of glory”.

The miracle of this fellowship is that first, we share the very life of Jesus through faith in Him, and second, we share this common life with one another because He is in us collectively as His body, the church.

Third, we maintain the integrity of this fellowship by being transparent with one another and with the Father.

1 John 1:5-7 NLT
[5] This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. [6] So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. [7] But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

God the Father has impregnated us with His own nature by His word…

1 Peter 1:22-23 NIV
[22] “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. [23] For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.”

1 John 3:9-10 NIV
[9] “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. [10] This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.”

Both Peter and John testify that the evidence of new birth and the presence of the life of God in us is the love we have for one another.

This means that Jesus Christ is the heart of our fellowship because He is at the centre of the Father’s heart and He is the centre of our new lives.

The most amazing truth is that God maintains the integrity of our fellowship by the constant cleansing of the blood of Jesus as we walk in honesty with the Lord and with one another.

The third characteristic of the local church is it’s FUNCTION .

The primary function of some local churches is to turn the church into a facility for “tertiary education”. The function of their churches is to train people in every facet of Christian life. Seminars, courses, conferences, meetings, even church services…all the members must attend to qualify for serving in the church and to move them towards becoming model believers.

Other congregations, for example, focus on the “good works” side of their life together. Social involvement is the main function of their family.

These things may be important but they must flow from, not be the reason for family togetherness. The function of the family, first, is to be a family. It is this aspect of the local congregation’s life that sets it apart from all other worldly groups and organisations.

We have this witness in the life of the early church in Acts. The church was welded together by the way they handled their everyday lives…their problems and challenges…applying the wisdom given to them by the Spirit to overcome their human frailties.

The outcome was waves of new converts, convinced by the witness of believers to their new lives, and coming into the church through the One who changed the people in God’s family. Being convinced that this was a God-thing, they wanted to be a part of it. Despite hardship and persecution, they also believed and were born into God’s family.

After the judgment in Ananias and Sapphira…

Acts of the Apostles 5:11-14 NLT
[11] Great fear gripped the entire church and everyone else who heard what had happened. [12] The apostles were performing many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers were meeting regularly at the Temple in the area known as Solomon’s Colonnade.
[13] “But no one else dared to join them, even though all the people had high regard for them. [14] Yet more and more people believed and were brought to the Lord—crowds of both men and women.”

So, we have, in Scripture, the witness of one global church, divided, geographically, into small units…believers living in unity with each other in obedience to their Head, doing life together, and having a powerful influence on outsiders.

What if the artificially divided and theologically distanced groups of believers today were to return to our roots in the New Testament? Perhaps the church of the Lord Jesus would no longer be a joke but would once again become the powerful force that would turn our world “right-side-up”!

RELATIONSHIP AND FELLOWSHIP

Bible Study, ,

There seems to be confusion, in our understanding of the Christian life, between relationship and fellowship. What do I mean?

How many families on earth have many members in a family relationship, husbands and wives, parents and children, siblings and siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins, etc., and yet they have little or no heart connection with one another. They have relationships but no fellowship. They live together but don’t communicate. They speak but don’t listen.

Once a couple has married, they are legally bound together in a relationship no matter what happens in their home. Children born of that marriage are sons and daughters and can never be “un-born”, no matter how they behave. Even if they no longer live together for whatever reason, they remain in a family relationship. They are always children of their biological parents.

However, fellowship between family members is different. Fellowship means that they are mentally and emotionally connected. They do life together. They share common experiences, interests, and goals. They have empathy and concern for one another. They function as a unit. They quickly correct what goes wrong to keep peace and harmony in the family. Most of all, they respect the order of authority and submission that maintains the function of those who belong to each other.

So it is with people and God. We are assured of a relationship with Him when we believe in Jesus. He receives us into His family permanently, and changes our status from slave to son. The Bible calls this miraculous transformation “adoption”.

Ephesians 1:4-5 NLT
[4] “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. [5] God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.”

God planned our adoption in eternity and made it happen through Jesus who reconciled us to the Father through His death. The Holy Spirit in us confirms our status as sons by His inner witness.

Romans 8:15-16 NLT
[15] “So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” [16] For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.”

Does this mean that we can never be “unborn”? In the spiritual sense, I think so.

However, just as it is in a human family, relationship does not mean or guarantee fellowship. Relationship is established once-for-all and is permanent. Fellowship must be maintained by day-by-day attention to the attitudes and behaviour that govern our fellowship.

In John’s first letter, he helps us understand what promotes, and holds fellowship together.

1 John 1:1-3, 5-7 NLT
[1] “We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. [2] This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. [3] We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ….
[5] This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. [6] So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. [7] But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.”

Let’s examine, step by step, what John says about fellowship.

To have fellowship with the Father and with His children is a process, beginning in eternity and unfolding in time for every individual who enters this unseen realm by faith.

First, fellowship with God and with one another in God’s family has a beginning in time in the new birth, based on the solid foundation of truth. We can only have fellowship with each other if our relationship is based on common faith in what God has done for us.

John assures his readers that he, (with his fellow disciples, obviously), had personal experience of Jesus who was a real flesh-and-blood human with whom they lived for several years. They saw Him die and rise again. Their faith in Him was based on solid evidence.

Their common faith, then, had a strong foundation on reliable fact. From that fact, they experienced the spiritual reality of new birth, and received new hearts that enabled them to have new relationships with one another.

All believers are now brothers and sisters in God’s eternal family. Human divisions and distinctions fall away and a new species has come into being. We are a new creation and all one in Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:16-17 NLT
[16] “So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! [17] This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”

Galatians 3:26-29 NLT
[26]” For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. [27] And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. [28] There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. [29] And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.”

It is this new relationship in God’s family with the common bond of faith in Jesus, love for one another, and common interest in God’s kingdom that constitutes the common life we share in God’s kingdom.

This relationship of family members in God’s family gives each member an opportunity and a responsibility to cultivate fellowship on a deeper level than in an average human family. Membership in God’s family adds a dimension not necessessarily present in a human family, that of relationship with God the Father and the Son, cultivated and maintained through the Holy Spirit in them.

Since we have the foundation, a new life based on truth and held together by God’s love working in and through us, we now have the reason and opportunity for true fellowship. Through God’s power working in us, He has set up this fellowship which is now up to us to maintain throughout our lives.

How do we maintain this fellowship?

John gives us two simple criteria for maintaining fellowship with the Father and with one another.

1 John 1:5-9 NLT
[5] “This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. [6] So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. [7] But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. [8] If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. [9] But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.”

Our fellowship with one another depends on our fellowship with God, the Trinity which we maintain by “living in the light”. What does living or walking in the light mean? Since God’s Word is …

Psalms 119:105 NLT
[105]”…a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.”

We live in the light by adhering to the requirements of the New Covenant. Again, it’s John who clarifies these requirements (which summarise and replace all 613 laws of the Old Covenant).

1 John 3:23-24 NLT
[23] “And this is his commandment: We must believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as he commanded us. [24] Those who obey God’s commandments remain in fellowship with him, and he with them. And we know he lives in us because the Spirit he gave us lives in us.”

Do you get it?

Fellowship with the Father is the foundation of our fellowship with one another. To maintain this fellowship, walking in the light with God must extend to walking in the light with one another. This kind of life demands all the grace God provides for living in a loving relationship of caring and sharing without hidden motives and dishonest attitudes which is initiated and maintained as we obey the Holy Spirit in us.

So, Paul counsels…

Colossians 3:5-15 NLT
[5] “Put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. [6] Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming. [7] You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world. [8] But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. [9] Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. [10] Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. [11] In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us. [12] Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. [13] Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. [14] Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. [15] And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.”

In the atmosphere of transparency, genuine love functions in harmony, togetherness flourishes, and fellowship happens.

God’s goal for His children is to cultivate this fellowship, flowing from love and unity, in the body of Christ, because this is the witness to the truth of Jesus’ life and death that is the power of the gospel.

John 13:35 NLT
[35] “Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

John 17:22-23 NLT
[22] “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. [23] I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.”

So, fellowship is the fruit of our relationship with God, and relationship as His sons and daughters in His forever family, the root of our fellowship with God and one another.