Suspended Physical Fellowship

Suspended Physical Fellowship

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 (NIV)

 

The enemy knows enough about the word of God to be deceitful. This attack on the Church that we are experiencing today due to the coronavirus is an attempt to defuse the Lord‘s position on  fellowship. If our strength is in fellowship, that is, by walking 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. Then our focus needs to be on this word “purify”, it means to clean, to make clear and to purge. Here’s the big deal, the tense of the verb communicates that it happens and continues to happen. There is profound power in fellowshipping. I did not get this concept in my younger days when I looked for any excuse to stay out of church. Think about it, it stands to reason that the enemy thinks that the church is weakened, ineffective and unproductive in her stay at home status. But in the recesses of my mind, I hear another word coming out of heaven: “Upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”.

Suspended physical fellowship does not prevent us from living out God’s word. The true Church cannot be suppressed by any attack of the enemy. Remember, when this word was given to the Church the church building was not some cathedral with heated and cooled seats nor did the congregation have building fund drives or family life Centers or any of the luxuries that some experience today. Often times they met down by the riverside, but get this, there was fellowship.

We must not be deterred by the barriers that come with COVID 19. It’s imperative that we keep our fellowship alive. The Lord can take our electronic fellowship and supernaturally grant us the same continuous purification that he promised in the days of the infant church.

There is power in small group conversations about the Lord and what the Lord is doing in this season. There’s healing and comfort in pulling our ministries together in a conference call and continuing to plan the future of the church. There’s hope in knowing that we are holy because our God is holy.  Get this, our holiness is not based on our behavior pattern, but on our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Dr. Bennie T. Henson, Pastor