This week, in our Devoted vision series, we are looking at God's desire that we be a community which is devoted to 'fellowship'.
Summary: God has made mankind in His image. This, in part, means that we are created for fellowship.
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 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 favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:42-43)
‘Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ (Genesis 1:26)
‘The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’ (Genesis 2:18)
When you read Genesis 1:26, did you notice the ‘us’ and ‘our’ in ‘let us make man in our image’? This is a reference to the trinitarian - three persons and one God - nature of God. God is a relational being. For eternity, Father, Son and Spirit have been in harmonious, loving relationship. This relational aspect of God is something that we are to inhabit as those made in His image. Vaughan Roberts, in his book, True Friendship, writes:
‘Friendship takes us right to the heart of the Bible’s message. God is relational. He has from eternity existed in a relationship of loving friendship within the Godhead: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He created us in his image as relational beings, uniquely able to relate to him in love.’ (Vaughan Roberts, True Friendship)
He also writes,
‘Friendship is not an optional extra, but is essential to our God-given humanity. Living unfriendly and friendless lives is both a rejection of God’s purpose for us as his image, and a dehumanising tragedy. Just as God is love, so he commands us to prioritise love in our lives by loving him and our neighbours’ (Vaughan Roberts, True Friendship)
RESPONSE
We need close friends and fellowship. We need a small number of brothers or sisters with whom we can confess our sin, fears, hopes, be supported and have fun! We also need the wider relationships that come from a church community of fellowship. This is a part of what it means to be like God - to be godly. Let’s pray that God would help us to and help our churches to be this kind of community.
TOGETHER IN SEPTEMBER
During September 2022, at CCP, we are having 'Together' meetings instead of our usual Community Groups. You are very welcome to attend these gatherings.
Please come to the church building at 7:30 pm on Wednesday evenings - refreshments and a meal will be available.
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