Fellowship

Our love to God is measured by our everyday fellowship with others and the love it displays.

Andrew Murray

Born from community, I have been paying attention to experiences of life giving fellowship. Trusting God’s Spirit in me, I entered different dynamics in peace and authenticity. As a result, I have been blessed with precious moments of fellowship. Godly fellowship rests on the soul in a way that stays with me and grows into insights and understanding.

God’s word and presence are not limited to certain settings, or even certain people. Conversation topics do not have to be about God or doctrine or the Body of Christ to experience fellowship. Hungry hearts can be wooed by God in any encounter with God’s people. It is amazing! Hungry hearts can be converted or not, churched or not, aware of God or not.

⁶ I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. ⁷ So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.

1 Corinthians 3:6-7 ESV

While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.

Genesis 8:22 ESV

These processes are always in motion: planting, watering, and increase AND seedtime and harvest. Having a heart prepared for fellowship makes us available to be used by God. We may plant or we may water. We may plant the seed, or tend to and gather the harvest. God is always working. More and more, I notice that the more I open up to the idea of God working, the less limited I am in working with Him.

If we make God’s love in and through us one of our top Christian distinctives and priorities, then we may encounter some startling revelations. Like, patriotism is neither godly nor ungodly. Like, anti-abortion does not equal pro-life. Like, God really does love everybody. Like, ignoring color insults the diversity God created. Like, one family’s good experience does not mean that a bad or dated process does not need work/attention/revision. Like, history matters and even men called good do not deserve celebration when motives are revealed. Like, agreement is not required for civility, godliness, and fellowship.

Dear Ones, truly this is our finest hour if we allow it. God’s love in and through us makes us bold, and visionary. We move toward risks with faith and follow God, period. Along the way there are lives who must mark our experience, and vice versa. I hope that we will not forsake God-opportunities for fellowship, the cairos moments on the journey that are full of life-changing, life-giving, and life-gripping insight.

We have quite the charge, I’d say. To love God, love self, and love others as self. I am finding that everything else is working itself out through God’s love. Longsuffering. Kindness. No envying or boasting. No arrogance. No rudeness. Yielding, not insisting on its own way. Not irritable. Not resentful. Rejoices with truth, not wrongdoing. Covers — bears all things. Tenacious — believes all things. Forward-reaching — hopes all things. Strong — endures all things. FELLOWSHIP… let’s just do it. Selah.

---

Dr. Shaunta Scroggins is the founder of The Bereans’ Commentary.