“that which we have seen and heard we declare
to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is
with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you
that your joy may be full.” (1 John 1: 3-4)
There are so many passages
that I could use in regards to fellowship and how important it is, look for yourself
as Paul makes reference to this in numerous letters to the early church, but
this conveys to me why we need fellowship and what it means.
The Greek word for fellowship
is: κοινωνία Koinonia means communion,
joint participation; the share which one has in anything, participation, a gift
jointly contributed, a collection, a contribution, etc. It identifies the
idealized state of fellowship and unity that should exist within the Christian
church, the Body of Christ. (source: Wikipedia)
This is the fellowship that I want to speak of; this
something more than just meeting together on a weekly basis, it has to do with
more than just the people and their conversations but something much deeper
than that. This is the fellowship that is severely lacking in our church
circles and our walk with God. It is all about unity, participation and contribution! How many of us can
actually say that they have all of this on any day in a given week? How about
in a month? I will be the first to admit that I know that is not very prominent
in my relationship with God or fellow believers. We may have one or two of
these in our fellowship on Sundays but I think if we are all honest with
ourselves it is very rare that we have all three.
So why is it so important to have this koinonia? And
what happens when we are lacking in this communion of fellow believers?
The importance of this lies in one thing, and that is
relationship. It all keeps coming back to this. It is about relationship with
one another and with our heavenly Father. We need the support of fellow
believers, we need their encouragement their understanding and every once and a
while that kick in the butt to put us back on track. This is the unity, participation and contribution
that I talked about. When we share and build relationships with one another we
can have unity with each other,
when we care enough about each other we contribute
to our fellow believers walk with God, and when we hold each other accountable
we participate in the growth
of faith in one another.
In all of this we also build up our relationship with
God and “our joy may be full” (1 John 1: 4). Unity with others gives us unity with God and the plans that He has for us, and to the
great commission that He gave to us. When we contribute to others lives we contribute to God’s kingdom and He in turn contributes to
our lives with His love peace and understanding. When we participate with other Christians we participate with God and what He wants to do in others lives
and in our own life.
So what happens when we are lacking in koinonia?
We lack growth. Your Christian walk begins to become stagnant
and stale, you start to lack direction and you are no longer unified with the
body of Christ. I have experienced this myself time and time again, I am just
as guilty of this as the next person is. When I lacked true fellowship I
stopped reading the Word, I stopped spending personal time in worship with God
and my prayer life was seriously lacking.
This leads to other things seeping into your life,
things that can get you completely off track of where God wants you to be and
where your relationship with Him begins to falter. If you do not have koinonia
with God your light can start to fade.
Remember when
you first became a Christian and you couldn’t wait to go to church on Sundays?
You couldn’t wait to talk to other people about the things you learned from
reading Gods Word or what God had revealed to you through prayer? Do you
remember how good that felt? I miss that feeling a lot and it all comes back to
fellowship.
Hebrews 10: 24-25 “And let us consider how we may spur one
another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some
are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another – and all the more as
you see the Day approaching”
Meeting
and encouraging one another! Koinonia!
There is joy in fellowship, and in fellowship there
needs to be unity, participation and
contribution. Meet together with other Christians, help each other to
grow in God’s grace and understanding, make it something more than the
ordinary! Make it about relationships!
Forgive, forget and have fellowship! Let Gods will
reign in your life!
