“We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.” (1 John 12:3-4)

When the church began, they were devoted to the fellowship. “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” It is here that Luke tells of the commitment of each member of the church to the other members. Paul would say, “For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” (Romans 12:4-5) What unites all believers is their relationship to Jesus Christ, who is the only way to salvation. “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” (John 14:6) He is our foundation and our glue, which brings the people of God together. He is also our focus and our life. He is what we all need.

As a witness to the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, John would remind us of our fellowship with God through Jesus Christ and our fellowship with each other. “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7) It begins when we come to God by faith, trusting what God can do in our lives as He begins to grow us as His children to mature believers becoming more and more like Jesus. Paul says, “He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.” (Colossians 1:28)  Growing in Christ, we are united to each other. Therefore, “we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” (Ephesians 4:15-16)

We mature in our faith because of God’s love for us. We are united to each other also because of God’s love for us. It is God’s love for us and developed in us that is the glue which holds the fellowship of believers together, just as God’s love keeps us united to Him. This is the heart of Paul’s prayer for the church.

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:17-19)

John would add that seeing the church be the church in fellowship with God and each other would bring him joy. He would not only have joy, but his joy and our joy would be complete. Jesus would also unite love and joy. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” (John 15:9-11)

In the Love of Jesus,

Michael Block