The basis of our fellowship with Him (God) and with each other.

 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. ⁷But 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 cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:6-7)

Fellowship is not based on our doing but rather upon our being. A casual glance at this familiar passage might lead you to think the opposite is true, but a closer look makes the basis of fellowship clear.

“If we say…” can be far different from what we are in reality. Those who are Christ’s have a lifestyle that proves up that relationship. Those who “say” one thing and live another are liars. Our churches have impostors among the true believers. One “practices truth” and the other lives a lie. How a person lives always proves who he is.

Those who “walk in the light” are those who know the source of light. They have fellowship with God and with each other. No amount of good works will change one from darkness to light. God is light and those who are in union with Christ live in that light.

We are very good at setting boundaries of fellowship that only reflect our immaturity and not God’s intentions. Jesus prayed for his faith-followers in John 17 saying,

I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. (John 17:20-23)

Becoming a oneness community is based on our relationship to God through Christ, not on our worship, views of certain doctrines, or other preferences. What we “do” rises from who we “are” and whose we are, not the reverse.

(to be continued)

living in light,

Royce