The fellowship of life is not merely one of the many lessons we learn in our Christian life; the divine fellowship is everything in the Christian life. If we don’t have a proper vertical fellowship with the Lord and a solid horizontal fellowship of life with the fellow brothers and sisters, God is not real to us in our daily living.
God comes to us as the fellowship, He calls us into the fellowship of His Son (1 Cor. 1:9), and the love of God with the grace of Christ are being transmitted to us through the fellowship of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 13:14).
Today we need to pay much attention to the fellowship of life and remain in this fellowship by the sense of life. In this fellowship we are being tempered, adjusted, harmonized, and mingled; the fellowship of life blends us together and mingles us together in the Body of Christ.
It is God Himself who blends the Body together, and He does this through the fellowship of life.
When we fellowship with the Lord personally, He shines on us, infuses us with Himself, supplies us, and exposes the sin and other hindrances to His dispensing; as we confess our sins and clear the things He doesn’t agree with, we have more fellowship of life.
When we open and fellowship with the fellow brothers and sisters the Lord put us with by exercising our spirit, touching the Lord, touching one another in spirit, and opening up to others concerning what is on our heart, we are being supplied, adjusted, tempered, and harmonized.
Sometimes we are “hot” for a certain thing to do in the church life, and when we bring it into the fellowship, we are being tempered and adjusted.
In the fellowship of life we see all things clearly, and we are being grounded, blended, and mingled with the Spirit to become the one loaf for the Lord’s satisfaction. Whatever we do and wherever we are we need to make sure we stay in the fellowship of life!
The Fellowship of Life is Everything to us in the Christian Life
We need to see that the fellowship of life is everything to us in our Christian life and Church life
It’s all or nothing: we either are in the fellowship of life and thus the Lord is real to us and we are built up in the Body, or we are not in the fellowship of life and therefore Christ is not real to us and the Body is merely a “spiritual concept” to us.
The fellowship of life, the circulation and flow of life between Christ and us and between us and the fellow saints, is everything to us in our Christian life. It is not merely a lesson we learn and then apply it from time to time, but it is a vital matter in our daily Christian and church life.
Just as we cannot live without the flow of blood in our human body so we cannot live without the fellowship of life. We may be short on preaching the gospel, reading the Bible, practicing the God-ordained way to meet and serve, or the practical service in the church life, but if we have a proper fellowship of life we will be OK.
Nothing in our Christian life or work should take the place of the fellowship of life, and we should not allow anything to displace the position of fellowship. We can’t be too tired to fellowship and we shouldn’t do anything at the cost of our fellowship. We need to realize that if the fellowship of life disappears, God disappears.
In our family life, church life, and Christian life we need to have more fellowship with one another in spirit. We need to have more fellowship with other churches in the country we are in, and we need to have more fellowship with the churches all around the world.
We are normal Christians when we are in the fellowship of life, and we have all sorts of problems and become abnormal if we are short of fellowship. God has called us into the fellowship of His Son (1 Cor. 1:9), and we should remain in a constant fellowship with God in Christ by touching Him and enjoying Him in our spirit.
The love of God and the grace of Christ are reaching us through the fellowship of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 13:14). In and as the New Jerusalem we will enjoy for eternity the flow of water of life from the throne of God and of the Lamb (Rev. 22:1). Fellowship, fellowship, fellowship!
Fellowship Blends us, Tempers us, Adjusts us, Harmonizes us, and Mingles us in the Body
Why do we need the fellowship of life? On the one hand the divine fellowship is as vital to our Christian and church life as the circulation of blood is to our human body, and on the other hand the divine fellowship supplies us and at the same time adjusts us.
The fellowship of life is for the building up of the Body of Christ, and when we enter into the fellowship we are being tempered, adjusted, harmonized, and blended with the others for the building up of the Body.
Sometimes we are like “hot iron” with a burden from the Lord or a certain aspect of the church life, and when we come to fellowship with others, the Lord “puts cold water on us” to temper us. We would prefer that the fellowship would always be “YES, do this”, but most times the fellowship adjusts us, tempers us, and harmonizes us.
As we open up and fellowship with the saints in life, we experience Christ’s blending, harmonizing, and perfecting the Body together (1 Cor. 12:24-25). In the fellowship our quickness or slowness is exposed and eliminated, our opinions are killed, our burdens are discharged and brought to fruition in resurrection, and the supply of life is nourishing us.
In everything we do we need to be through the cross and by the Spirit, dispensing Christ to others for the sake of the Body of Christ. When we are about to do something or we have a burden to take care of a certain matter, we need to open to the Lord and fellowship with Him, then open to another member of the Body the Lord sends us to – simply to fellowship with him also.
Fellowship requires us to stop before we do anything and just open up and fellowship. We need to learn to do nothing without fellowship.
Among us we should have the blending of all the individual members of the Body of Christ, the blending of all the churches in certain districts, the blending of all the co-workers, and the blending of all the elders. Blending means that we should always stop to fellowship with others. Then we will receive many benefits. If we isolate and seclude ourselves, we will lose much spiritual profit. Learn to fellowship. Learn to be blended. From now on, the churches should come together frequently to be blended. We may not be used to it, but after we begin to practice blending a few times, we will acquire the taste for it. This is the most helpful thing in the keeping of the oneness of the universal Body of Christ. (The Divine and Mystical Realm, pp. 86-88)
In the Body of Christ we don’t “do according to how the Lord leads us” or “do things as we consider best before the Lord”; as members of the Body we fellowship first with the Head, Christ, and then with the immediate members that the Lord placed us with.
We have a lot of peculiarities and distinctions – yet we don’t know this until we come into the fellowship. We need to learn to fellowship. We need to learn to be blended, allowing the Lord to cross us out in the fellowship and replace us with Himself.
What the Lord desires is a blended loaf, the Body of Christ, and for this we need to no longer remain “whole grains” but be unshelled, grounded to powder, blended with others, and mingled with the Spirit as the oil.
In the fellowship of life we are being unshelled, we are grounded to powder so that we lose our distinctions and peculiarities, we touch one another in spirit (and are touched by others in spirit), and we are mingled with the Spirit as the oil to be blended together into the Body of Christ.
How we need to fellowship with the saints about everything, allowing the cross of Christ to operate in us and doing everything by the Spirit to minister Christ to others!
How we need to pay the price to be blended with the saints from our locality and from other localities and countries so that we may harmonized, adjusted, tempered, and mingled, losing our distinctions and being built up with others in the Body of Christ!
Lord Jesus, cause us to see that the divine fellowship is everything in our Christian life and church life. May we be those who stop and fellowship before doing something. Blend us with the saints in the Body. Lord, come in as the fellowship of life to adjust us, harmonize us, temper us, and mingle us in the Body of Christ. Release the fellowship among the saints, the elders, the serving ones, the brothers, the sisters, the young and the old! Release the fellowship between saints in different countries. Blend the Body together through much fellowship in life!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. James Lee’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, The Divine and Mystical Realm (ch. 6), as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Aspects of the Christian Life and Church Life Seen in the New Jerusalem, week 4 / msg 4, The Fellowship of Life.
- Further reading: recommending ch. 18 in, The Triune God to Be Life to the Tripartite Man.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Oh, how we enjoy the blending, / With the saints along the way, / Singing, praising, and enjoying, / Fill our spirits ’til we say: / Hallelujah for the blending! / It’s the way to live today. / So we’re standing and proclaiming, / In the church is where we’ll stay.” (Hymn on Blending)
# Blend us, Lord, blend us, Lord, ’til we are in one accord. / Hallelujah—the saints going on! / Blend us, Lord, blend us, Lord, open hearts we can afford. / Hallelujah—the churches go on! / As the members of / His organic Body, / We need the others to go on. / As local churches, / We do also need / One another for our going on. (Song on our need for blending)
# Christ to me is so subjective, / Regulating all the day; / He corrects and rules and guides me, / And adjusts in every way. (Hymns #537)
# Build me, Lord, with other saints, / Independence ne’er allow, / But according to Thy plan / Fitly frame and join me now. / In experience not my boast, / Nor in gifts would be my pride; / For Thy building I give all, / That Thou may be glorified. (Hymns #839)
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