Fellowship...Or The Lack Thereof

In this season, I believe that there is a lack of fellowship amongst believers which our adversary is using as a weapon to facilitate the great apostasy within the hearts of many. What does it mean to be affected by an apostate spirit? It is a rebelling against, a forsaking or abandonment of what was once believed, a falling away. The word “apostasy” is derived from the Greek word “apostasia” which means to stand away from. This word is also closely related to the noun that is used for a divorce. This is very interesting because the relationship between God and the church is often referred to as a marriage. It is very important that the definition of “apostasy” is fully understood in order to gain strategy in this season to war against it. There is a huge theological debate that has been occurring for years that says that if a person has “fallen away” from what he or she once believed, then they were never really saved initially. Other’s affirm the concept of the sovereignty of God’s grace and that a true believer will never truly fall away. I am not here to debate any theological points. I am simply here to cause you to think. So let’s consider this…anyone that has ever fallen away in any way has done so because he or she was not in fellowship with the right person or spirit. I often hear things like, “I can’t do her/him, I can’t be around everyone, Everyone can’t go with me…” Sound familiar? I know it does to me. I’ve often said it myself! But I really started examining this. I began to hear of more and more people falling away, returning to previous lifestyles, desiring to fellowship with those from their B.C. days rather than fellowshipping with those from their A.D. days. I noticed a commonality in all of those situations; the lack of fellowship with true believers. In the book of Acts, after the Pentecost experience, the people not only devoted themselves to apostolic teaching, but they devoted themselves to the breaking of bread AND prayer (Acts 2). There was unity. And as a result, many signs and wonders followed them. Acts 2:46-47 (NIV) says, “Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” This is so powerful; that something we disregard as not a necessity is what preceded the adding of saved souls on a daily basis. Did you know that your fellowship could be the life line for someone? Somehow, the church at large has gotten confused with the responsibility to the ministry of reconciliation and the ministry of souls with the promotion of our own “personal ministries” and our desire to remain untouchable or unreachable. We’ve spooked those who may not have a full understanding of church lingo and put up an invisible barrier to those; you stay over there, and I’ll stay over here while yelling across the line anything I think you may need to know. I’m here to say people of God, the more we do this, the more we push those people away into the direction of their adversary. Fellowship is key. Acts 2 demonstrates the power of fellowship. Consider our first mother, Eve, who was in fellowship with the serpent; yet another dynamic of how powerful fellowship truly is. The serpent didn’t steal anything from Eve, and Adam for that matter. He simply talked her into or fellowshipped with her long enough for her to forfeit her rightful place in God. My hope is that we can truly experience unity in the body. Not the kind of unity that brings us to a building where we worship the same God yet can’t stand the person we are sitting next to due to personality idiosyncrasies, where we leave the building and can’t tolerate or stand to be in one another’s presence, where we aren’t truly concerned for our brother and sister throughout the week…That’s not family, although we often mistake it for being such. Many people leave their natural families or have been ostracized by their natural families and want to be accepted by their spiritual family only to be pushed away by those they should be in fellowship with. Pastor’s are walking away. Preacher’s and minister’s are getting caught up in lasciviousness. Babes in Christ are being lured away by wolves in sheep clothing. And the lost are not being won…all because of a lack of fellowship. My thought provoking question for you today is this: If Jesus can sit and fellowship at the table with sinners, why is it so hard for us to sit and fellowship at a table with the saints? Selah.