Daily Devotions
June 10th, 2013 by Pastor Solley1 John 1:1-7 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; 2 (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) 3 That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. 5 This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
6 If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
Fellowship is an often misunderstood part of the Christian life. Many will equate fellowship with salvation and think that because one is saved that they automatically have fellowship with God. While you can’t have fellowship apart from salvation you can have salvation and be apart from fellowship with God. Fellowship can be thought of as “Two fellows in the same ship”, to doing the same things, having the same mind, going in the same direction, working together for a common and expected end. Fellowship with God is an important part of the Christian life, so important that the theme of 1 John is fellowship. The reason fellowship is so important is because of what it brings to the Christian. (Verse 4 above) Fellowship with God brings joy, full joy to the life of the Christian. That being true the opposite will be true as well, without fellowship with God we can have no joy. How then can we walk in fellowship? The first thing we find in this epistle is that we need to walk in the newness of salvation. (Verses 1-3) John was inspired of the Holy Spirit to write these verses some 60 years after he was saved. Yet 60 years later we can see the newness of salvation for John had not worn off, he had not taken his salvation for granted, it was as if he had been saved that very day. The reason John could keep that newness of salvation was because of his walk with Jesus. We need to walk with Him if we are going to stay in fellowship with Him, keep that newness of salvation. Christian, do you read your Bible everyday, do you pray everyday, are you in church when the doors are open, do you serve Him? When we do these things we keep the newness of salvation. That is the first step.