Fellowship in Jesus
I’m not sure who’s responsible for turning out the lights and locking up the church after our Sunday morning service, but I know one thing about that person: Sunday dinner is going to be delayed. That’s because so many people love to hang around after church and talk about life decisions, heart issues and struggles, and more. It’s a joy to look around twenty minutes after the service and see so many people still enjoying each other’s company.
Fellowship is a key component of the Christlike life. Without the connectivity that comes from spending time with fellow believers, we’d miss out on many benefits of being a believer.
For instance, Paul says we can “encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11). The author of Hebrews agrees, telling us not to neglect getting together, because we need to be “encouraging one another” (10:25). And the writer also says that when we’re together, we “spur one another on toward love and good deeds” (v. 24).
As people dedicated to living for Jesus, we prepare ourselves for faithfulness and service as we “encourage the disheartened” and are “patient with everyone” (1 Thessalonians 5:14). Living that way, as He helps us, allows us to enjoy true fellowship and “to do what is good for each other and for everyone else” (v. 15).
Under God’s Wings
There are several Canada goose families with baby geese at the pond near our apartment complex. The little goslings are so fluffy and cute, it’s hard not to watch them when I go for a walk or run around the pond. But I’ve learned to avoid eye contact and give the geese a wide berth—otherwise, I risk a protective goose parent suspecting a threat and hissing and chasing me!
The image of a bird protecting her young is one that Scripture uses to describe God’s tender, protective love for His children (Psalm 91:4). In Psalm 61, David seems to be struggling to experience God’s care in this way once more. He’d experienced God as his “refuge, a strong tower” (v. 3), but now he called desperately “from the ends of the earth,” pleading, “Lead me to the rock that is higher than I” (v. 2). He longed to once more “take refuge in the shelter of [God’s] wings” (v. 4).
And in bringing his pain and longing for healing to God, David took comfort in knowing that He had heard him (v. 5). Because of God’s faithfulness, he knew he would “ever sing in praise of [His] name” (v. 8).
Like the psalmist, when we feel distant from God’s love, we can run back to His arms to be assured that even in our pain, He’s with us, protecting and caring for us as fiercely as a mother bird guards her young.
Knowing and Loving
In the powerful article “Does My Son Know You?” sportswriter Jonathan Tjarks wrote of his battle with terminal cancer and his desire for others to care well for his wife and young son. The thirty-four-year-old wrote the piece just six months prior to his death. Tjarks, a believer in Jesus whose father had died when he was a young adult, shared Scriptures that speak of care for widows and orphans (Exodus 22:22; Isaiah 1:17; James 1:27). And in words directed to his friends, he wrote, “When I see you in heaven, there’s only one thing I’m going to ask—Were you good to my son and my wife? . . . Does my son know you?”
King David wondered if there was “anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom [he could] show kindness for [his dear friend] Jonathan’s sake” (2 Samuel 9:1). A son of Jonathan, Mephibosheth, who was “lame in both feet” (v. 3) due to an accident (see 4:4), was brought to the king. David said to him, “I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan. I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table” (9:7). David showed loving care for Mephibosheth, and it’s likely that in time he truly got to know him (see 19:24–30).
Jesus has called us to love others just as He loves us (John 13:34). As He works in and though us, let’s truly get to know and love them well.
Jesus Our Brother
Bridger Walker was only six when a menacing dog lunged at his younger sister. Instinctively, Bridger jumped in front of her, shielding her from the dog’s ferocious attack. After receiving emergency care and ninety stitches to his face, Bridger explained his actions. “If someone had to die, I thought it should be me.” Thankfully, plastic surgeons have helped Bridger’s face heal. But his brotherly love, evidenced in recent pictures where he’s seen hugging his sister, remains strong as ever.
Ideal family members watch over us and care for us. True brothers step in when we’re in trouble and come alongside us when we’re afraid or alone. In reality, even our best brothers are imperfect; some even wound us. We have one brother, however, who’s always on our side, however: Jesus. Hebrews tells us that Christ, as an act of humble love, joined the human family, sharing our “flesh and blood” and becoming like us, “fully human in every way” (2:14, 17). As a result, Jesus is our truest brother, and He delights in calling us His “brothers and sisters” (v. 11).
We refer to Jesus as our Savior, Friend, and King—and each of these are true. However, Jesus is also our brother who has experienced every human fear and temptation, every despair or sadness. Our brother stands alongside us—always.
Faith of a Child
As our adopted granny lay in her hospital bed after suffering several strokes, her doctors were unsure of the amount of brain damage she had endured. They needed to wait until she was a bit better to test her brain function. She spoke very few words and even fewer were understandable. But when the 86-year-old woman who had babysat my daughter for twelve years saw me, she opened her parched mouth and asked: “How is Kayla?” The first words she spoke to me were about my child whom she had loved so freely and fully.
Jesus loved children too and put them in the forefront even though His disciples disapproved. Some parents would seek out Christ and present their children to Him. He chose to bless the children as He “[placed] his hands on them” (Luke 18:15). But not everyone was happy that He was blessing little ones. The disciples scolded the parents and asked them to quit bothering Jesus. But He intervened and said, “Let the little children come to me” (v. 16). He called them an example of how we should receive God’s kingdom—with simple dependence, trust, and sincerity.
Young children rarely have a hidden agenda. What you see is what you get. As our heavenly Father helps us regain childlike trust, may our faith and dependence on Him be as open as a child’s.
Fixing Go-Karts
The garage of my childhood home holds many memories. On Saturday mornings, my dad would roll our car down the driveway so we had room to work—with my favorite project being a broken go-kart we’d found. On that garage floor, we gave it new wheels, attached a sporty, plastic windshield, and—with Dad on the street looking out for traffic—I would race down the driveway with such excitement! Looking back, I see more was going on in that garage than simply fixing go-karts. Instead, a young boy was being shaped by his dad—and getting a glimpse of God in the process.
Human beings have been patterned on God’s own nature (Genesis 1:27–28). Human parenting has its origin in God too, for He is “the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name” (Ephesians 3:14–15). Just as parents imitate God’s life-giving abilities by bringing children into the world, when they nurture and protect their kids, they express qualities not sourced in themselves but in Father God. He is the model all parenting is based on.
My father wasn’t perfect. Like every father and mother, his parenting sometimes failed to imitate heaven’s. But when it so often did imitate God, it gave me a glimpse of God’s own nurture and protection—right there, as we fixed go-karts on the garage floor.
God Remembers Names
Just one Sunday after I’d started working as a youth leader at a church and had met several of the young people, I spoke to a teen seated next to her mom. As I greeted the shy girl with a smile, I said her name and asked how she was doing. She lifted her head and her beautiful brown eyes widened. She too smiled and said in a small voice: “You remembered my name.” By simply calling that young girl by name—a girl who may have felt insignificant in a church filled with adults—I began a relationship of trust. She felt seen and valued.
In Isaiah 43, God is using the prophet Isaiah to convey a similar message to the Israelites: They were seen and valued. Even through captivity and time in the wilderness, God saw them and knew them “by name” (Isaiah 43:1). They were not strangers; they belonged to Him. Even though they may have felt abandoned, they were “precious” and His “love” was with them (v. 4). And along with the reminder that God knew them by name, He shared all that He would do for them, especially during trying times. When they went through trials, He would be with them (v. 2). They didn’t need to be afraid or worried, because God remembered their names.
God knows each of His children’s names—and that’s good news, especially as we pass through the deep, difficult waters in life.
