BEFORE FELLOWSHIP!

 

 

FELLOWSHIP is a word not often heard. This term is used well in the Church… It reflects the meaning of closeness, true love, intimacy. Children of God (both spiritual Israel and those belonging to the Church) enjoy the closeness, the fellowship, they have with God and each other…  Fellowship truly is a very spiritual word: and those who fellowship in Christ worship Him in Spirit and in truth.

Be warned: even in the church building there are deceivers. It is imperative to have spiritual discernment for whom you should really desire and need to share time with, your life with.

Selah.

Let me give you some examples from my own life.

When I finally repented and came to Christ I probably could not have been more ignorant of God. I never saw nor held a Bible as a child, a teenager. It was my son through whom God got my attention. No, it’s not His fault I didn’t listen… I was one of those who put Him off to make my own happiness. I wasn’t not willing to bow to Him until I was in my twenties.

NOTE: I love to tell people I thank God I didn’t die in my twenties because I would have gone straight to Hell. Now it bugs me when most people (including ‘Christians’ don’t heartily agree with me!

When I became a Christian, even then I didn’t hook up with a church immediately! (Again, thank God he is longsuffering!) But when I finally did, I stupidly (very stupidly) believed every person I met who attended church on a regular basis was a Christian.

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

I was even in a wedding where, at a later date, I heard this woman say about the Bible:  “Sure. If you want to take it literally!” What was she saying? She was saying the Bible is not God’s Word!

 

IT IS:

 

1 Thessalonians 2:13
And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.

 

2 Peter 1:20-21
Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

 

2 Timothy 3:16-17
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

 

Upon getting to know her more, I also learned she was a liar and a thief… Of course, I grew to dislike her and the false fellowship ended.

 

Actually, I was in two weddings with such women. The second never said slander against the Bible, but she seemed to hate Jewish people and she, too, was a liar and a thief.

Be careful who you fellowship with!

 

James 4:4
You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

 

 

 

SCRIPTURAL TRUTHS FOR THIS JOY STORY:

 

 

GOD’S CHILDREN WALK IN THE LIGHT:
1 John 1:5-7
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

 

WORSHIP GOD IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH:
John 4:23-23
Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

 

STUDY TO SHOW YOURSELVES APPROVED OF GOD:
Acts 17:11
Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

 

CHILDREN OF GOD AND CHILDREN OF SATAN:
John 8:42-47
Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me.  Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say.  You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!  Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me?  Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”

 

YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE:
Matthew 7:13-14
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.