I never did learn to appreciate fellowship. I loved hangingout with people but that isn’t fellowship. It is part of it but not the entirething. The significance of fellowship is something that God has taught mepretty recently. I will save my definition of the word fellowship for laterbecause I think that for this writing, I want you to discover it step by step.
Let’spretend that I never said the word fellowship because that is a very religiousword and most likely misunderstood. I will start with the simple idea ofinteraction between people. I remember in history class that my teacher told usa story of how Native Americans used to exile people for horrible crimes. Theywould put them out alone in the wilderness. Having the survival skills theydid, they would most likely survive. In about a month, they would come back andfind them dead. The reason was that they couldn’t stand being totally secludedfrom other people. People need interaction with other people. It is absolutelynecessary not only for ourselves, because that’s the way that God designed us,but because God has called us to serve others. Quick question: How can wefulfill God’s calling for us to serve other if we don’t interact with others asa main part of our day? I don’t know for curtain but I’m pretty sure we can’t.So if that is true then to fulfill God’s calling in our lives, we must be interacting with others in a waythat glorifies God.
Next partis this: Lifting each other up. I’m pretty sure that everyone reading thisright now has had times where they couldn’t do things on their own and eitherwent to someone for help, wished they had asked for help, or was unsure aboutwhat to do. Therefore, we do need each other. A wise verse from our good old friendSolomon says in Ecclesiastics 4:10 “If either one of them falls down, one canhelp the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.”This is the key verse for this idea. We all have struggles in our lives, butthe way we handle them shows our true character. We need to be together forthose struggles to help each other up. “We” was referring to my fellowfollowers of Christ. I don’t think anyone reading this wants to be that oneperson who falls and has no one to help them even just get back up, let alonestart walking in the right direction.
This partis very important and one that I used to overlook the important of. This partis about sharing your life. God wants all of us, right? If our God wants to useall of us, including those parts about ourselves that we really don’t like orshare, don’t you think that we should be able to share it with our family ofChrist before God calls us to share it with the world? All of those cool peopleyou hear about who turned their lives around and dedicate themselves to helpingpeople with the same problem, they had to learn to share or confront thatproblem sooner or later. We should learn from their example and not put offsharing things on our hearts with our fellow followers of Christ. The coolthing about his part is: We all are in the same boat. We all have things thatweigh our hearts down. They may vary from person to person but we all havethose tough times in our lives so don’t pull yourself into the trap of thinkingthat nobody will understand or that you are all alone. We as the body of Christare here to be there for each other.
These threeparts are what I believe fellowship is made of. My definition of fellowship isinteracting with fellow believers in a way that glorifies God. That is my basicgeneral definition but one of the most important parts of fellowship is liftingeach other up and sharing with each other pain and joy. That’s right, a goodpart of fellowship is also just enjoying each others company just like you do withyou family. Fellowship to me is just basically doing all the important thingsthat family’s do with the family of Christ. It’s hard to think of all of thefollowers of Christ out there as family, but they are. As you walk on yourjourney with Christ, I can guarantee that you will have difficulties. The goodnews is that you do not have to go through it alone. You have Christ and youhave your family in Christ. Let us remember this as we continue on our walkwith Christ.
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