Fellowship Is Precious

“. . . there are many gods and many lords,

yet, for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things,

and we exist for Him,

and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things,

and we exist through him.”

1Corinthians 8:5–6

Your most important asset is the fellowship you have with another in Christ.  It is through fellowship that you receive much of the strength, encouragement, correction, and knowledge that you will receive in this life.  God’s people who do not get along very well still have great hope of getting along well if they have fellowship in the things of God, and if they love what fellowship they have.

The fellowship you have with anyone else in Christ has been created for you by God!   It is priceless!  Love it!  Suffer for it!  Fellowship is more valuable to you than your life in this world.  Fellowship in Christ is the work of God; you did not do it, and you cannot fix it once you ruin it.  Only God can.

When a brother in Corinth sued another brother, Paul was deeply saddened because that lawsuit put those brothers’ fellowship at risk.  He asked the brother who filed the lawsuit, “Why wouldn’t you rather suffer being wronged?”  In other words, “Your fellowship is too precious to put at risk!  Suffer being wronged rather than risk losing fellowship!”

I have yet to see anyone in the Lord do well without loving and pursuing fellowship.  And loving and pursuing fellowship includes overlooking faults, making room for differences in things that don’t matter to God, and sometimes, being misunderstood.  The benefit to you of having fellowship with a brother or sister in Christ far outweighs whatever you have to fight through to keep it.  Do not love yourself so much that you let fleshly differences become so big to you that they endanger the fellowship you have with someone else in Christ!