Day 18 - Experiencing Life Together
Life is meant to be shared…
God intended for us to be able to share life together. This is what the bible calls fellowship. The word fellowship has lost a lot of it’s meaning through the years. If you ask, “where do you fellowship?” it means where do you go to church? It’s so much deeper and more meaningful than that…
Real fellowship is so much more than just “going to church.” As a matter of fact, it’s impossible to fellowship in a huge group. Have you ever gone to church and just felt like it was so big and you didn’t “connect” with anyone? You could just slip into the back of the church and leave, no one would even know you were there! Church doesn’t necessarily provide an atmosphere to deeply connect with others sometimes.
Fellowship is where you experience a rich a meaningful exchange between you and another person or a small group of people where you can experience life together. It is where love is developed, unselfish giving and comfort is shared. You really cannot find fellowship in a large group. Even Jesus only had twelve men that he was intimate with. It’s in a small group that you can let down your guard, take off the performance or fear masks, and let people see you for who you really are.
Recently in our small group during a time of sharing about the topic “who is your best friend and what was it about them that was special?” several of the group said that they didn’t currently have a best friend, or can’t remember ever really having one. We found that there was common thread of loneliness that was in many of us. We also found that being together and being able to share that, in fellowship, was a step to overcoming a feeling of being alone.
In order for real fellowship to flow, there must be dropping of the superficial, super spiritual, surface level chit chat. True fellowship is authentic. Genuine heart to heart, gut level sharing. Getting honest about what you feel and where you are at. Affirming others and sharing in their joy, questions and even suffering. It’s in times of crisis that we need each other the most, and it’s in these very times that we feel most unworthy and insignificant that we tend to withdraw. In a small group the body of Christ can best demonstrated and tangible.
Real fellowship is experienced when mercy is in operation. Fellowship is broken when is there is unrepented sin or unforgiveness operating. You cannot have fellowship if there is unforgiveness. God’s mercy to us is what we extend to each other. His forgiveness to us is what we extend to others. It’s inevitable that we get hurt when we get closer to people. The question is what do we spend our energy doing, retaliating or resolving it? The latter releases fellowship.
Remember, forgiveness completely deals with the past, but trust looks towards the future. Forgiveness is immediate. Trust is rebuilt over time. We learn to forgive, let go of the past, and trust that we will not be hurt again. The interesting thing is that sometimes all of the baggage we carry has never found a safe place to be let go with people that care, love and can walk with us through the healing. We can’t do it alone. We sure try don’t we?
True fellowship brings healing that we cannot give ourselves…