40 Days of Spiritual RebootSample

Let us get back to our purposes for life in today's reading. So we have five purposes that we as believers live for.

Worship… to celebrate God’s presence amidst us. Ministry - to demonstrate God’s love. Fellowship - to assimilate God’s family. Mission - to communicate God’s Word to the world and finally, Discipleship - to educate God’s people. To be a healthy disciple of Jesus, we need to be balanced in our obedience and execution of these five purposes. If we give equal importance and attention to these five in our personal lives, we will find ourselves balanced and healthy.

Let's think about Fellowship today. This is dear to the heart of God. Today as I write this, it is Saturday morning and my sanctified imagination assists a replay of the events and emotions that the disciples of Jesus experienced. They would have woken up to the bleakest morning ever. Jesus was in the grave. Death had won again. And relationships were hit hard. There was disillusion and dismay…bewilderment about the promises and teaching of Christ. There also was the element of personal loss. Each disciple had left his own life and dreams to follow him. Now he was gone. Fellowship had been broken. The greatest qualification they had, of those who followed him, was that they had been ‘with him’. This was their learning experience, their orientation, their authentication, their certification. They had been with him. Now that... has been threatened.

Jesus had made claims of being with them. He promised another like himself who would be ‘with you’. He was with them in the boat through the storm. He was with them! That's what he came for. In one of his latter promises, he said that no one knew the day or the hour of the return of the son of man. But we were to watch and pray. He was going to prepare place for us so that he can come and take us to himself that we might be with him for eternity.

I think you’ve picked up on my train of thought by now. ‘With Him’. That's what Jesus worked for. He could no longer stand the sight per se, of the father standing at the window and looking toward the horizon waiting… hoping… for his wayward, uninterested, flesh indulged, self-absorbed, irresponsible son to show his head over the horizon.(that would be me)And in a heartbeat he would be out the door running toward him to reclaim him. Because ‘this is of God’ that we should be ‘with him’. Here is heavens version of the prodigal son story. The older brother, Jesus, out of love for his father, went out looking for the prodigal and reconciled him with the father. ‘We were reconciled, through Christ’. He destroyed within his body the sin that stood between us and the father and in Christ we were now ‘with him’ again. I and my father are one Jesus said. Whoever comes to me comes to the father.

Fellowship is the unbroken, grace-enabled union that a person has with God and other people. This once established with God extends to every other relationship as well. If broken with God, that brokenness extends to every relationship too. The life flow of love and grace is broken and ceases to do its life building work through a network of relationships all serving each others interests and esteeming others greater than themselves. The letter of 1 John unpacks that for you.

So… brothers and sisters… ‘fellowship’ is not tea and stale biscuits after church. It is not pious socialising with citizens of heaven. It is not groups or communities even though you call them fellowships. Fellowship is a blood-bought, spirit-filled union of redeemed sinners that understand how grace flows... from God the father through his son to me to you to me to her to him to me to them to the underprivileged to the lost to the broken to you and back to me.

If you’re in fellowship with God, you’ll be in fellowship with others who are redeemed. If you’re in fellowship with others who are redeemed you’re in fellowship with God. If you are ‘not’ in fellowship with the redeemed, your fellowship with God is your greatest pretence. Spiritual life is sustained in fellowship.

‘I’m not in regular fellowship with the redeemed, but my walk with God is fine.’… Bull-feathers!!!!

The activities of fellowship are 1. Listening to God’s word ‘with the redeemed’. 2. Talking to God along with the redeemed.3. Planning service to God with the redeemed. 4. Prioritising time with the redeemed on a weekly basis (with a clear understanding of grace-flow) 5. Practising the presence of God with the redeemed (where two or three are gathered there am I in the midst of them)

You have come to understand today that God’s greatest value is unbroken proximity, uninterrupted closeness, relational fidelity, ‘with-himness’. That's what Jesus hung on the cross for. He prayed, father let them be one, even as you and I are one.

OPEN YOUR BIBLE

At this time you need to be planning your next bible reading plan as we complete the forty days of renewal. Start looking for a good short-term reading plan that will get you through at least two months of new testament reading.

COME CLEAN

Has fellowship been a priority? Do you prioritise time with the redeemed because you understand how a body works… how life-giving grace flows. Are you in fellowship?

Take this opportunity to identify three people who are redeemed. Make them your fellowship forum. Covenant with them to stay connected no matter what. Solicit the same covenant from them. Begin praying, reading and serving together. Journal the rapid spiritual growth you will experience in the first few months of your fellowship experience.

Next time you hear me say small group or home group in church. You’ll know what I’m talking about.