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Fellowship
The word "fellowship" has many different meanings or aspects. For instance, it means the communion and communication between the believers in their communion and communication with God the Father and Christ the Son (footnote 1 of Acts 2:42, Rec. V. ). It also means participation (Phil. 1:5, 3:10) or joint participation (I Cor. 10:16; I John 1:3,6,7); contribution (Rom. 15:26, 12:13); sharing in common (Heb. 13:16) and so forth. Fellowship is not only in material sharing or financial contribution (2Cor. 8:4; Phil. 1:5, 4:14,15) or sharing of the Lord Jesus' suffering (Phil. 3:10; I Peter 4:13). It is also of the divine life, of love, of light, and of spirit. Hence, it should be practiced in life, in love, in light, and in spirit. In spiritual reality, fellowship is the issue of the eternal life and is actually the flow of the eternal life within all the believers (footnote 3 of I John 1:3, Rec. V.). In the following we would like to focus our interest on the "communication" aspect of fellowship. It is indeed the great blessing, joy and enjoyment on earth to have fellowship with the Triune God and with one another. Through calling the name of the Lord, praying to Him, reading His words ( particularly pray-reading His words ), singing to Him, praising Him, thinking of Him, meditating on Him, etc. we may have fellowship with God the Father, the Son Lord Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. However, we must first have a pure and clean conscience, with no offense, no defilement and no filthiness. This means that we need to deal thoroughly with our conscience by confession, repentance, and asking for forgiveness. This is the right way to contact and have fellowship with the Triune God. Otherwise, our exercises may be in vain, and the fellowship will not be opened to us. As for fellowship among the saints, we usually consider it in a natural way. Suppose we have a problem, we may come together to discuss it and try to solve it. Each of us may have certain opinion in dealing with it. Perhaps through much discussion and finally, the majority rules in most time. However, this may suffice us, but we may not gain any life through the whole thing. Surely this is not the divine way to have fellowship. In fact, fellowship asks each every one of us to drop willingly our own opinion. We should never insist on or keep our own opinion no matter what. More than this, when we come together to have fellowship, we should not have any of our own opinions at all. Please leave all of our opinions on the cross, just come with a good and pure conscience, open ourselves to the Lord without any reservation, pray to the Lord, seek sincerely and desperately His leading and guidance on the matter or problem, and fully trust Him. He is faithful and able to provide the solution for us. One may argue that if every one keeps silence and waits on the Lord in the meeting, how and where can we get the solution-answer? We are sorry to say that this is due to the fact of much less or no spiritual exercise in us, and we do not have any trust or confidence in the Lord. We are indeed of little faith! Suppose all of us exercise and remain in our spirit, will not the Spirit work, operate and anoint in and among us? Eventually will not He inspire and touch some one of us and reveal His solution-answer to us? Should we not give the Spirit a chance? Dear brothers and sisters, we are far short of the proper and healthy fellowship, let's learn and practice together the genuine fellowship in our church life. Bro. Joseph |
