I’m studying 1 John with a group of ladies in my home this summer, and this is one of John’s purposes for writing this epistle. I wanted to share a little excerpt of my teaching with you. I hope it encourages you to enjoy the fellowship with God and His people that He has lovingly brought you into.
Fellowship means “to have in common.” What can we possibly have in common with a perfectly great and good God? While He made us in His image, we became enemies in our sin.
This is true of each of us because the Bible tells us not one of us is free of sin. We are born into this sin nature that separates us from a holy God.
Holiness means that God is set apart and perfectly pure. An opportunity to fellowship with Him can only be possible if we are perfectly righteous.
Listen up.
This is the gospel, friends. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has always existed in a perfectly harmonious relationship with God the Father and God the Spirit. The Father created humanity to bring them into this loving relationship, but man chose to trust his desires more than he trusted God’s command.
In doing so, sin entered the world and strained the relationship between the Creator and His people. Sin deserves death as a necessary punishment by a God who hates evil. People can and will pay the debt for their sin with the death of their bodies, but that will not bring them into fellowship with God. They’d have to be righteous for that. And that’s the bad news. There is no way for us to be righteous.
But there’s good news. God, in His great love for His people, made the word of life manifest so God could restore us to our harmonious relationship with Him. The Father sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to be fully human and fully God. Jesus endured the world’s hardships in a human body full of limitations, but He did so perfectly–free of sin. He died the death we deserve and then gifted us with His righteousness.
This is the free gift of salvation that Jesus extends to us through His life, death, and resurrection. We can trust Jesus Christ to have conquered our sin and restored our relationship with the Father.
We merely accept His finished work as our salvation. God freely gives us fellowship through Jesus Christ. That came at a significant cost, but we accept it as a gift.
Fellowship.
This binds us to Christ and our brothers and sisters of the faith. We are to receive it freely, but God calls us to walk in it.
This fellowship is a cure for loneliness. God created us to be dependent on relationships – Him and His church. Loneliness is an epidemic because culture teaches us to rely only on ourselves. But this isn’t a joyful way to live.
How can you take a step this week into deeper fellowship with God and His people? Not only is what you need and were made for, but it will bring you great joy!
Brittany K. Miller 