At times, it can seem overwhelming, even impossible, to think of completely giving your life over to God. Having Him in complete control is hard. It's not because you don't want Him there. The whole idea can be a huge weight on your life. Constantly evaluating your life to make sure God is controlling every part. But that's why He gave us the Holy Spirit. If you access it, it gives you strength and is constantly working in your life to make you more like God. This journey, however, isn't meant to be traveled alone. Our mission as Jesus states in Matthew is to "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." But we're meant to accomplish this with the church. Not the building you meet in every Sunday, but the body of Christ. All believers. And this is where fellowship comes in.
To me, fellowship used to mean the thing we did as a church during picnics and fun activities. Talking with my Christian friends. That pretty much summed it up. Not really any different from what I do with my non-Christian friends. But Francis defined fellowship as something deeper. As the church, we should share everything with each other, bearing each other's burdens. Our fellowship as a church is being a family. Caring for one another. It was said that fellowship and transparency go hand in hand. That's a little scary, but it's the true unity we should have in the church. We need to have each other's backs.
Besides it being necessary for our personal walk with Christ, why should the church be such a display of family? You can't tell forgiveness. You can only show it. And when others witness the love believers have for each, and the forgiveness we give to our family when they wrong us, they will see Christ's love. Our unity makes the message believable.
To accomplish God's mission, we need others with us. We need to show Jesus to the world by the way we interact with each other. We weren't meant to live in isolation. The church was meant to be a greater unity, a deeper love, a family.
I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
John 17:20-23
