Why does He love me so?
Remember when love first blossomed?
What about now? Is it Saturday Night Fever or is it Monday Night
Football? Is it The Sound of Music or The Sound of Silence? Is it $60 a
dozen or $1.50 a stem including thorns? Ideal or Idle? Which of these
best describes your fellowship with your First Love, our LORD Jesus?
Those questions come from one of my very favorite devotions coming
to my inbox by Alan Smith of Helen Street Church of Christ in
Fayetteville, North Carolina called Thought For The Day
I cannot fathom why God loved us so much He gave His Son. Remember
that first flush of love? Remember when it was so exciting to run, not
walk, down that aisle to proclaim Jesus had saved you? If you are not
Baptist, perhaps you proclaimed it in a different way. Whatever way you
declared to the world that Jesus was your Savior and that He gave you
the Holy Spirit to wear as a seal upon your heart, you were in the first
flush of love… all was fresh… all was exciting… The fellowship was
exhilarating, the κοινωνία koinōnia (koy-nohn-ee'-ah)— meaning partnership, that is, (literally) participation, or (social) intercourse, or (pecuniary) benefaction:
- (to) communicate (-ation), communion, distribution— fellowship should
continue to be thrilling, but as we all know, it either fades away or
it develops into something very mature and extremely satisfying.
It is like marriage in so many ways. The first blush of love is that
honeymoon phase when you allow absolutely nothing to come between you
and your Beloved. You yearn for that closer walk. You study His word.
You follow His every step.
Our fellowship with our beloved, our betrothed should be tender,
unique and should carry an inexpressible joy. God has a specific plan
for our fellowship and that is why He gives us just enough light for a
few steps, because His desire is for us to lean upon Him completely
every day not just on Sunday. He wants us to remain in the honeymoon
phase.
Our engagement ring, the Holy Spirit dwells within us, and the Holy
Spirit fellowships with the Father and with the Son and thus we are
included in the same koinōnia. This is the vertical koinonia. How great is that! The key to this kind of koinōnia is 1 John 1:9 If
we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous that He may forgive
us the sins, and may cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Confessing His word will divide the joints from the marrow, and the soul from spirit. Hebrews 4:12 For
the Word of God is living, and powerfully working, and sharper than
every two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of both soul
and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge of the thoughts
and intentions of the heart.
This kind of fellowship leads to such a wonderful relationship, the
soul yearns to be in the presence of the Father. We recognize the
eternal quality of our souls, but our physical bodies are tied to the
physical world for a little while longer to complete the work begun in
us. This causes a conflict between the desire to please our LORD and the
desire to be both physically and spiritually within Him. Just think how
wonderful it will be when all the chains of this earth drop away and we
meet Him in the air. Glorious day! But, our conversations with, our
communion with Him will have to be enough for right now.
As long as we submit our will to Him, and He holds sway within our
hearts and minds, our fellowship is filled from the open windows of
Heaven in the form of the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace,
long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control.
Against such things there is not a law. We are not above the law, nor
are we beneath it. We are no longer chained to it and the consequences.
As Paul quotes from Hosea,
1 Corinthians 15:55 "O death, where is your sting? Hades, where is your victory?" Hosea 13:14
56 Now the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the Law; 57
but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus
Christ!
God is able to detoxify all relationships because of our partnership
with Him. He, of course, does most of the work, but we are also
required to participate as well. As in, “if you abide in Me and I abide in you…” which is conditional upon our participation.
Koinōnia is not just vertical from God to us, but is
horizontal. The Holy Spirit in me recognizes and fellowships with the
Holy Spirit in others. This is horizontal koinōnia —with
brothers and sisters in Christ. It is a very special kind of fellowship
that is only shared among the joint heirs with Christ.
Have you ever met someone for the very first time and had such a
keen rapport with that person there was an instant friendship? If you’ll
think back, there was no pride, insecurity, insincerity, or
self-absorption involved in that relationship at all. Rather, you found a
lot in common. Most of the time, you find that person is Christian,
too.
I always remember the time I was getting my college transcripts so I
could go back to school to finish my degree. I was walking across the
green and a woman was walking toward me. We started smiling at each
other and then we started grinning and when we finally met each other,
we clasped hands in the air and started reciting the exact same Bible
verse! We hugged and then she went her way and I went mine. I never knew
her name and am not sure I’d recognize her face, but I know beyond
doubt that my soul will recognize her soul in Heaven. The koinōnia was
so intense, I could feel the Holy Spirit in me rejoicing with the Holy
Spirit in her. That was just a microscopic taste of how it will be in
Heaven.
Without our fellowship with God being in perfect shape, we cannot
possibly have excellent fellowship with our brothers and sisters. The
“I” in me will kill it. Rather we should make sure we are at peace with
the Great I Am.
The Peace Offering talked about in Leviticus 7:11
is the Fellowship offering. It is when the Israelites would sit down to
a meal with the LORD, and the time spent dining was all about communing
with God. Recall Jesus’ promise and blessing to the church at Laodicea,
“If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.” This is when the Soul is satisfied and content.
This is an excerpt from my new book The Crowns of the Believers.
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