Fellowship with one another

I was sitting in church last Sunday when my pastor mentioned this verse from 1 John:

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. 1 John 1:7 NKJV

Now my pastor’s excellent sermon was more about Jesus being the light of the world than about fellowship, but I felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to study this particular verse, keeping in mind the isolation discussion here on this blog.

First of all, if we have Jesus in our hearts, people should be able to see Jesus’ light in us as we go about our daily affairs.  This is pretty obvious, isn’t it?  I mean, if we call ourselves Christians we shouldn’t be stealing or lying or killing anyone.  We need to love God enough not to do anything that offends Him.

Of course, we all fail to live up to this standard, that’s why Jesus died on the cross in the first place, but part of being a Christian is that when we fall, we confess our sin, get back up and try again.

Now, some people get really good at beating themselves up, thinking this is pleasing to God.  When I was younger, I had a very screwed up definition of humility.  I thought humility was hating myself. But the older I get, the more I realize humility is recognizing how we can do nothing on our own.  Our abilities, our intellect and our looks all come from God.  When people told me, “Debbie, you are such a beautiful pianist.”  I used to correct them and tell them that isn’t true.  I hit a wrong note here, there’s a lot of people who can play so much better, yadayada .

But then one time the Holy Spirit asked me, “So you’re saying, Debbie, the gift I gave you is no good?”  That question stopped me dead in my tracks.  So now I just say thank you and move on.

Okay, so if we are walking with Jesus, our walk should be in the light. Check.  But then there’s the next part.  If we are walking in the light, we will have fellowship with one another.  What?  You mean I can’t just have a Jesus and Me club?  No, not if you believe the word of God.

Something happens when the love of God is in our hearts.  We just can’t help but start seeing the needs of people all around us and doing something to meet those needs.  Even if you’re an introvert.  Even if you have battle scars from people abusing you in the past.  The love of God will break through all of that and you’ll find yourself talking to people.  You’ll find yourself praying for them.

Of course, God never makes us into robots who lose our choice to do or not do things, but the longer we walk with God, the more of His nature becomes our own.  Now notice I said the longer we walk with Him.  Some people ask Jesus into their hearts and refuse to walk with Him.  They don’t grow much past the infant, “it’s-all-about-me” stage.  They’re the people who will try to sabotage a new move in the church.  They will wear out the pastor asking for pastoral prayer for their every need because they haven’t learned how to stand on their own yet.

As I studied the word “fellowship,” I was interested to see it meant “working together”more than it meant “meeting somewhere with other humans to consume a pizza. ” I will let the Greek-understanding theologians have their own deep discussions, but what I think this verse is really saying is if we love God, our walk will demonstrate what’s in our hearts and then that love will overflow so much, we will join arms with our brothers and sisters in Christ to bring that love to a hurting world.

This ministry takes all sorts of forms.  When we are coming out of isolation, the idea of ministry is intimidating.  But raising our sons and daughters to be decent humans is a great accomplishment, one of the greatest ministries there is, in fact.  But even if we are the primary caretakers of our children and homeschool them, we still have to teach them how to interact with others if we want them to develop into healthy adults.  A primary way of teaching this is to teach by example.  This means we have to have healthy relationships ourselves.

The God who fashioned the woodpecker with a special sticky substance on its tongue so bugs would stick to it is a God who is more than able to fashion a ministry just for you and he will bring brothers and sisters in Christ to help you.

I heard an astute person say once the cross has a vertical line and a horizontal line because one line points us to God while the horizontal line points us toward others.  I’d say those lines also show us what love looks like.  True love comes from God  (the vertical line) and it fills us so full, our hands extend to the left and to the right (the horizontal line)  and when we connect with others who are doing the same thing, our influence to change the world for the better expands exponentially.

So the choice is ours: stay isolated in our tiny, but still unsafe place or change the world with others and have exponential  influence?  I’m choosing the last choice, how about you?  Let’s change the world together.