"3 That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." - 1 John 1:3
Simply because you are in a room with a large group of people does not automatically insinuate that there is fellowship; and conversely simply because you are all by yourself, it does not automatically imply that you cannot have fellowship. You can be surround by folks and be completely out of touch with everyone in the room, and furthermore, you can be all alone with not another person for 40 square miles and be promoting fellowship with one another. How is that? Because “truly our fellowship is with the Father.”
Promoting fellowship with the Father and with his Son will promote fellowship with your brother in Christ & promote love towards your fellow man. A healthy realization of the love of God in us will produce love towards one another. Often fellowship is defined as simply spending some quality time with those of whom you share common ground with; but in fact you can be emerged in a social environment but yet feel a complete disconnect. You can feel: alone, insecure, unwanted, discontent; and the devil will tell you that it is "them." So you move, relocate to another youth group or church. You begin to fault find and judge, blaming others, while all the while never realizing that the reason your fellowship is not full is because you have not the fellowship with the Father.
Take for example the Mississippi river. That mighty stream that flows down the United States basically dividing our nation in half. This river provides much fertile wetlands for habitat of all differing description; it provides transportation, recreation, and commerce for people of all walks of life. It breaks and forks producing many different streams and creeks. Moreover, it floods and ebbs to provide vital nutrients to crop land. However, if you were to visit the inception of the Mississippi and dump gallons upon gallons of oil; it would eventually flow down stream to pollute and kill and the life that the Mississippi sustains. So it is in our lives; the devil wants to pollute the fellowship at the main source. The fellowship with the Father; doing this will have a trickle down effect and pollute all areas of your life.
Therefore, it behooves us to keep our fellowship strong at the inception, focus on the true fellowship with the Father and let him provide, produce, and sustain the fellowship with both our Brothers and Sisters in Christ and further strengthen our love for our fellow man.
Thoughts? Please respond to pgcollins65@gmail.com
