Fellowship with God and with the Saints in Spirit to have an Interwoven Fellowship

The divine fellowship, the fellowship of the eternal life, is an interwoven fellowship – the horizontal fellowship with the saints is interwoven with the vertical fellowship with the Lord, and we need to maintain both aspects of fellowship; the divine fellowship is everything in our Christian life.

Oh Lord, teach us how to fellowship with the saints in spirit! Teach us how to fellowship with the Lord by touching the Spirit with our spirit! Amen, Lord, we want to have this interwoven fellowship – the vertical fellowship with God being interwoven with the horizontal fellowship with the saints! May we enjoy all that God is by means of our fellowship with Him and with the saints! Amen!

Thank the Lord that we believers in Christ were brought into the fellowship of the divine life, the wonderful fellowship with God and with one another in the mingled spirit!

The initial experience of the apostles was the vertical fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ; when they reported the eternal life to us, they experienced the horizontal aspect of the divine fellowship. Now we all have entered into this divine fellowship!

Right now there’s a fellowship of eternal life going on within us, within all the believers in Christ. This fellowship is the flow of life, and we need to maintain this flow of life, treasure this flow of life, and deal with any obstacle in the way of this wonderful flow of life.

We enter into this fellowship by exercising our spirit, for the fellowship of the eternal life is in our spirit. It is not merely in our soul – our understanding, our will, or our emotion, but in our spirit, our mingled spirit. Praise the Lord for our mingled spirit!

Whenever we exercise our spirit to contact the Lord and also to contact the saints, we are in the divine fellowship. But if we don’t exercise our spirit, no matter how much we read the Bible and how many meetings we go to, we are not in the divine fellowship.

This fellowship is in the mingled spirit, the divine Spirit mingled with our human spirit. We enter into the divine aspect of the fellowship by means of the Holy Spirit, who is joined to our spirit.

And we enter into the horizontal fellowship of the divine fellowship by means of our human spirit, which is mingled with the divine Spirit. The secret is our spirit.

Our mingled spirit is the means by which we enter into and remain in the divine fellowship, and in the divine fellowship, we have everything we need for us to be one with God for the fulfilment of His eternal purpose.

Enjoy and Experience the Interwoven Fellowship: the Horizontal Fellowship with the Saints is Interwoven with the Vertical Fellowship with God

For us to have a living in the reality of the Body of Christ, we need to enjoy and experience the interwoven fellowship – the horizontal fellowship with the saints being interwoven with the vertical fellowship with God.

We have been brought into this fellowship by God through some members of His Body, and now we need to live in this interwoven fellowship.

The apostles had vertical fellowship with the Triune God, and they reported the things of eternal life to us, for us to also have fellowship with them (1 John 1:2-3); now we are in this interwoven fellowship.

We need to pay attention to this interwoven fellowship and deal with any insulation or problems that may arise. This interwoven fellowship is actually the fellowship of the Spirit, which is the Spirit Himself as the fellowship.

2 Corinthians 13:14 speaks of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The grace of Christ is Christ Himself enjoyed by us, the love of God is God Himself tasted by us, and the fellowship of the Spirit is the Spirit Himself moving within us.

The fellowship of the Holy Spirit brings into us and makes real to us all that God is as love and Christ is as grace. When we exercise our human spirit, we enter into this fellowship (Phil. 2:1; Rev. 1:10).

When we meet with the saints, we need to exercise our spirit to enter into and enjoy the interwoven fellowship: we have real fellowship only in spirit, and this horizontal fellowship with the saints leads us to more vertical fellowship.

If we exercise our spirit when we speak with the saints, we will not be loose in our speaking, we will not talk in a worldly manner of talk, and we will not speak negatively about the saints or the churches.

Rather, we will fellowship in spirit, we will touch the Lord together, and as a result, we will come before the Lord in prayer, offering prayers of intercession to Him.

But if we don’t exercise our spirit when we contact the saints, if we do not exercise to touch the Lord as we also touch the saints, we may talk about all kinds of things, but we do not have fellowship in spirit.

Fellowship is genuine only when we exercise our spirit, for it is in our spirit that we enjoy and experience the interwoven fellowship – horizontal fellowship with the saints leading us to more fellowship vertically with God, and vertical fellowship with God leading us to have more fellowship horizontally with the saints.

If two saints come together and fellowship in spirit, if they exercise their spirit as they talk, their horizontal fellowship in spirit will lead them to contact the Lord together vertically, and this will be an interwoven fellowship.

For us to have this fellowship in spirit, for us to have an uninterrupted fellowship, we need to deal with any problems.

First, we need to confess our sins, for the Lord is faithful and righteous to cleanse us of any sin which His light exposes and we confess (1 John 1:7, 9).

Second, we need to obey the light; when the light shines, we need to say Amen to the shining and obey the shining.

Third, we need to take care of the sense of life. We may be in a conversation with someone and the Lord may touch us inwardly to stop, for our conversation leads to death; we need to obey the inner sense of life and peace.

Many times we start a conversation with the saints in a good way, but at one point in our conversation, it turns to something that brings in death. Oh Lord!

May we learn to deal with anything that hinders the fellowship of the Spirit and remain in this interwoven fellowship!

Our horizontal fellowship with the saints must bring us into vertical fellowship with the Lord; then, our vertical fellowship with the Lord will also bring us into horizontal fellowship with the saints.

We must maintain both the vertical and horizontal aspects of the divine fellowship in order for us to be healthy spiritually.

We must maintain our fellowship with the Lord, walking in the light and confessing anything that He exposes.

We must maintain our fellowship with the saints, exercising our spirit when we speak with the saints.

May the Lord bring us into the interwoven fellowship in the church life for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ and for our going on in a healthy way spiritually.

Lord Jesus, we come to You by the exercise of our spirit to touch You as the Spirit! Amen, Lord, we treasure and love our vertical fellowship with God! Shine on us, Lord, and expose any insulation, problem, and hindrance to the fellowship of life. Flow in us. May Your life have a free way to flow in us and out of us. We exercise our spirit, Lord, as we contact the saints. We want to fellowship with the saints in spirit so that we may have more fellowship with God! Amen, Lord, may we enter into a genuine fellowship in spirit with the saints, which will lead us to more fellowship with God! May we learn not to gossip or spread death by our speaking with the saints but rather, have an interwoven fellowship with the saints and with God! Amen, Lord, bring us all into the experience and enjoyment of the interwoven fellowship: fellowship with the saints in spirit and fellowship with God in prayer! Build us up together in spirit, Lord, and build Yourself into us in all our fellowship!

The Divine Fellowship is Everything in our Christian Life: in this Divine Fellowship God is Interwoven with us, Mingled with us!

If we see that the divine fellowship is an interwoven fellowship, we will realise that the divine fellowship is everything in our Christian life. This interweaving of God and man is the mingling of God with man.

In our fellowship with God by prayer and our fellowship with the saints in spirit, God is mingled with us, and all the riches of His being are dispensed into our being.

The divine fellowship is everything in our Christian life. When we have the divine fellowship, we have God and all His riches, and everything we do and say is for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ. But when fellowship disappears, God also disappears, for God comes as the fellowship (2 Cor. 13:14; Rev. 22:1).

The fellowship of the Holy Spirit brings to us the love of God and the grace of Christ, and this divine fellowship is everything to us in our Christian life. We need to learn to fellowship with the Lord day by day in a genuine way by exercising our spirit to touch the Lord as the Spirit.

We also need to learn to fellowship with the saints, the fellow members in the Body of Christ, by exercising our spriit to fellowship in spirit. When we do this, when we fellowship with God and with man, there’s an interweaving taking place: God is mingled with us and we are mingled with us.

In this divine fellowship, God is interwoven with us, and this interweaving is the mingling of God and man to bring the divine constituent into our spiritual being for our growth and transformation in life.

We need both aspects of the divine fellowship; we cannot say that we only fellowship with God but we don’t fellowship with the saints, and we can’t say that we just like to fellowship with the saints but we don’t have a personal fellowship with God.

In our meetings and in all our coordination and fellowship among the churches, we need to have this interwoven fellowship, for the divine fellowship is everything in our Christian life.

Because there’s not enough fellowship in spirit among the saints and among the churches, the Body of Christ is not sufficiently built up. We have to admit that there’s not enough fellowship among the local churches and that the churches are not absolutely one in the fellowship. Oh Lord!

If we realise that the divine fellowship is everything in our Christian life, we will open to the Lord as never before so that we may live in the mingling of God and man – God mingled with man and man mingled with God!

The apostle Paul lived in this interwoven fellowship, even when he was in prison; he had fellowship both with God and with the saints, and this fellowship was interwoven, thus bringing God into him and bringing him into God.

When we believers in Christ live in the divine fellowship, our Christian life becomes very living, active, and full of impact.

When we enjoy and experience the interwoven fellowship, the divine fellowship, the divine constituent is brought into our being, and we will grow and be transformed in life. Furthermore, we will be built up with the saints in spirit for the building up of the Body of Christ.

The divine fellowship blends us, tempers us, adjusts us, harmonises us, and mingles us together into one Body (1 Cor. 10:16-18; 12:24-25). This means that, when we are about to do something or go somewhere, we need to first stop and fellowship.

We need to fellowship with the Lord and also fellowship with the saints. Whether we are slow or quick to do things, we should learn to fellowship with God and with the saints. May we not do anything without fellowship.

We should fellowship with the Lord and also with the saints with whom the Lord put us. There must be the blending of the individual members of the Body, the blending of all the churches, the blending of the co-workers, and the blending of the elders.

The biggest shortage among us today is fellowship. We have to admit that we don’t yet have the habit to fellowship, and may not even like to fellowship.

The divine fellowship reconstitutes us with God, and it also adjusts us and corrects us.

The divine fellowship brings the divine constituent into our spiritual being, causing a spiritual change in our being, and when we live in this divine fellowship, we have the reality of living in the Body of Christ.

May we learn to fellowship. May we live in the interwoven fellowship. May we realise that the divine fellowship is everything in our Christian life.

Lord Jesus, cause us to see that the divine fellowship is everything to us in our Christian life. May we see that, when we are in the interwoven fellowship with God and man, we have God, but when fellowship disappears, God also disappears. Oh Lord, we treasure the flow of life, and for this we are willing to lay down our soul life! We want to learn to fellowship with You and to fellowship with the saints in spirit! May there be much interweaving of God and man, the mingling of God and man, by means of our being in the divine fellowship! We come to You, Lord, and we give ourselves to You to enter into the divine fellowship and remain in fellowship. May we be corrected, moulded, adjusted, and tempered in the divine fellowship. May we be reconstituted and rebuilt with the Triune God as we remain in the divine fellowship! Amen, Lord, the divine fellowship is everything to us in our Christian life! May we all have more fellowship with God and more fellowship with the saints in spirit!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brother Ricky Acosta on this topic, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1990, vol. 1, “The Triune God to Be Life to the Tripartite Man,” pp. 359-365, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Experiencing, Enjoying, and Expressing Christ (part 3 – 2025 Summer Training), week 35, The Fellowship of the Eternal Life— the Reality of Living in the Body of Christ – day 3.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – The divine fellowship being everything in the Christian life, a portion from, The Triune God to Be Life to the Tripartite Man, Chapter 18, by Witness Lee.
  – 1 John (Program #8) – Conditions of the Divine Fellowship (3), via, Bible study radio.
  – The horizontal aspect of the divine fellowship by the human spirit, a portion from, The Triune God to Be Life to the Tripartite Man, Chapter 18, by Witness Lee.
  – The Immense Significance of the Human Spirit, via, Bibles for America blog.
  – Experiencing the vertical and horizontal aspects of the divine fellowship, a portion from, The Triune God to Be Life to the Tripartite Man, Chapter 17, by Witness Lee.
  – Walk in the Light, Have Fellowship—a Foretaste of New Jerusalem, via, New Jerusalem blog.
  – Giving the Lord the first place in all things to maintain the fellowship of life, the flow of life, article by Ed Marks in, Affirmation and Critique.
  – The Divine Trinity – Essential Bible Verses for a Deeper Study, via, Holding to Truth in Love.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Pray to fellowship with Jesus, / Speaking nothing in pretense; / Ask according to the spirit, / Praying by the inner sense. / Pray to fellowship with Jesus, / List’ning earnestly to Him; / Be impressed with His intentions, / Yielding to Him from within. (Hymns #784 stanzas 4-5)
  – From my spirit within flows a fountain of life— / The Triune God flowing in me; / God the Father’s the source, Christ the Son is the course, / And the Spirit imparts life to me. / Lord, I treasure the sweet flow of life, / And my soul-life at last I lay down; / O Lord, deepen the pure flow of life; / At Your coming may life be my crown. (Hymns #1191 stanza 1 and chorus)
  – I long for fellowship in spirit, / Long that my spirit forth may come, / Long to be saved from self-deception, / And every hindrance overcome. / I long for fellowship in spirit, / With saints in spirit thus to pray, / Long for deliv’rance from pretention, / Long for true fellowship today. (Hymns #847 stanzas 3-4)