Michael continues that Hebrews 12 says, God disciplines those he loves. The purpose of discipline and reproof is to correct — to restore to an upright position. Fellowship means to live a life committed to connecting our hearts with Jesus Christ, with our Heavenly Father, and one with another in the household of faith. Discipline is often painful but it’s necessary. According to Hebrews 12:9, “Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?” It hurts to be straightened but it’s for our own good to be restored upright. You can’t be an example to the church while you’re living in sin. When it comes to reproof and correction, men and women need a specific action plan. Because of correction and encouragement to do the right thing, we committed our lives in the sight of God and mankind. God will blessed repentance. Reprove and correction means to stimulate each other to love and good deeds.
We are not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is. God created us for fellowship with another. Apathy is one of the enemies that will destroy fellowship. Apathy is defined as: Want of feeling; an utter privation of passion, or insensibility to pain; applied either to the body or the mind. As applied to the mind, it is stoicism, a calmness of mind incapable of being ruffled by pleasure, pain or passion. In the first ages of the church, the Christians adopted the term to express a contempt of earthly concerns. Quietism is apathy disguised under the appearance of devotion. Transformational communities are the foundations of church assemblies. Transform means to change in character or condition. Most men and women judge the quality of their lives by their connections, abilities, works and their accomplishments. However, salvation is of grace and not of works. Unless Christ is preeminent in our hearts, earthly works will be futile. Jesus said, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these other things will be added to you.
Sin makes men and women walk in lonely paths. The prideful selfishness of sin separates us from God and from others. However, the tie that binds is the love of God. The Apostle Paul said, above all things put on charity — the love of God, which is the bond of perfectness.
Busyness is the enemy of fellowship. What does it mean to be busy? Here’s a allegory: Satan called a worldwide convention of demons. He said, “We can’t keep Christians from going to church or forming an intimate relationship with their Savior, so here’s what I want you to do. Steal their zeal and appetite for God so that their hearts will grow apathetic and lazy. How shall we do that? Persuade them that they need to keep themselves busy. That fathers need to work constantly and have no time for fellowship. Tempt them to get mobile devices for their children so they will isolate themselves in their own self centered little worlds. Have their wives think that they need to work full time so that they can be imprisoned by their covetous desires to keep up with the Jones’s. Have them return from their vacations exhausted and keep them busy, busy, busy. Invite them to gossip in churches but don’t let them pray. Keep them talking about their problems and others’ faults and failures but don’t let them join their hearts together in prayer. Call them to a works-based system to keep their hands and their minds occupied with the busy-ness of worldly pursuits.”
Christian writer, Oswald Chambers said that the main thing about Christianity is not the works we produce but rather maintaining our relationship with Jesus Christ. We will not be the men and women of God without other men and women of God in our lives. We’re most like the people with whom we choose to associate.
In the First World War, two boys who had grown up like brothers volunteered together for military service. They both served in France and found themselves defending the same trench line. When their commander said, “Charge!”, they charged the German lines. The enemy machine gun fire made them retreat back into the trenches. One guy didn’t see his buddy return to the trench. He started over the trench to find his buddy, but his commander said, “He’s probably dead. Don’t go out to find him.” However, he went out of the trench and into the bloody field looking for his buddy. When he finally found him mortally wounded, his buddy said just before he died, “I knew you’d come.”
The Bible says there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother. We can’t survive the spiritual battlefield without other men and women of God. Part of dying to self is entrusting our lives to others who “have our six.” They have our backs — our 6 o’clock position — and we have theirs in the midst of the spiritual battle. Therefore, forsake not the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is, and so much as ye see the day approaching ... that we may stimulate one another to love and good deeds to the praise of the glory of God’s grace!
Your brother in Christ, Michael
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