Face to Face: The Joy of Fellowship

People need people. Our souls were made for so much more than screens and livestreams and social media as convenient as these vehicles can be. We are not machines, we are flesh and blood with souls and spirits and with the need for connection. We all long in some way for the touch of human kindness, to look into the eyes of others for compassion and tenderness, and to hear  words of affirmation or even acknowledgment that we really matter. We can experience this over and over again with people we do not even know if we simply take the time. Need screams everywhere. And this need is not simply for something as tangible and temporal as money or things. When we isolate ourselves we become jaded and warped and distorted in our thinking. While solitude can be good for a time, community is necessary for wholeness. That is how we are created and lest we forget, our Creator God is a “with-us” God. He desires fellowship with and among His people. Before the fall of mankind, He walked in the Garden with Adam and Eve in the “cool of the day” in perfect fellowship and sweet communion.

 Believers who seek to go solo – walking alone through this life – isolating themselves from the body of believers - are very liable to grow drowsy and soft in their walks with the Lord.  Iron sharpens iron. When sojourning with other believers we stay alert, refreshed and encouraged to make further and quicker progress in our own faith walks on our road to Heaven. There is always “further still” in our walks with the Lord, Amen?  Besides all that, friendship is sweet to the soul and strengthens us in more ways than we can even imagine. We would do well to remember that our days are few in comparison to eternity and they are far better spent in doing good than simply whiling away our time on things that will never make it “through the fire that will test each man’s work” as well of robbing us of God’s best for our lives.  Believers are to be filled with “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” through the power of the Holy Spirit – letting others see Jesus in us – endeavoring to help others by both precept and example. Jesus did this when He walked this dusty earth and “Those who claim to live in Him must walk as Jesus did.”