Do you like to gather with your good friends? Does having a meal together, whether fixed in your home or going to a restaurant with friends mean an enjoyable time? Does that friendship lift you up, make you feel good for some time afterward? How would you like to feel even better?
Being with friends, laughing, telling stories, and enjoying a meal is a good time. We look forward to them. We remember them with fondness. It may be just the thing we need to pull us out of the doldrums. Good friends, really good friends, last a lifetime and our memories of them never fade.
We can experience something even better than good friendship. It is called the fellowship of believers. Oh, I know the argument. Someone at a church has hurt you in the past. Been there, done that. It can happen to any of us. After all, the people who are there are human, just as we are. We may even hurt someone while there. So, what is the difference?
The difference is we are all connected by Christ. We are all covered by God’s grace. We are all able to forgive, just as we have been forgiven. We are all given the instruction to go to our brother or sister and talk it out. Not one of us is perfect. We like to say that when defending ourselves, but we don’t like to allow for imperfection in others.
There were squabbles in the early church, too. But they didn’t allow that to separate them. They overcame the squabbles to be with one another, to hear a message from one of the apostles’, to pray, and to share a meal together. The fellowship of the body of Christ was far more important than any personal preferences or squabbles. Perhaps we should learn from them.
I pray we all choose to be in fellowship with other believers. I pray we go to worship services to hear a message. I pray we set aside squabbles and preferences to enjoy the fellowship of Christ. Be in fellowship. Hear a message. Spend time in prayer. Share a meal. Be lifted up. Share in Christ.
Acts 2:42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
Marty Pressey 