Our Family 1 – Our Brothers and Sisters

 God puts us in a family called the church for our good and the good of the church.  The relationships we form will encourage us in our spiritual lives.  They strengthen, give guidance and provide family for us to give to. 

Fellowship

Act 20:7 On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight.

Hbr 10:24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.

The disciples met together regularly to receive encouragement as well as to receive teaching.  They worshiped together and this helped them form a great unity.  If we try to walk out this life without the protection, support and encouragement of others, we will find ourselves in weakness and without the proper guidance we need.  It is very important you maintain an ongoing fellowship with other believers on a regular basis.

Our Spiritual Growth

1Pe 1:22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.

1 Th 2:11 For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.

You will find yourself learning how to love those in your church in many ways. Through service, prayer and acts of kindness you will have ample opportunity to love just like Jesus loved his body, the church.  The harder you look, the more things you will find that you can do to love.  If we ignore the body – the church, then we become self centered and unloving through lack of practice. Most of all, when we love and serve his body, then we become more like him- dead to self and alive to the Spirit.

Unity  

John 17:20-23  I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, [are] in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Jesus prays for unity in the church.  Not a unity by mans power, but a unity by the arrangement of God, his Father.  That is the kind of unity that ushers in the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus said wherever two or more are gathered in His name, he is in their midst.  With unity of spirit, we can put darkness to flight and establish God’s presence in any situation or place.

 Mat 18:16  But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that 'by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.

Mathew 18:20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

Don’t Give Up

Heb 10:25  Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another-and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

It is the nature of man to be solitary – alone.  It is the tendency of the unredeemed nature to want to do it by ourselves.  We must not forsake the gathering of the family of God.  It may mean fellowship meals, prayer times, worship meeting, hymn sings, or just going out for breakfast.  Don’t think that you can stand on your own.  It’s the little sheep that meander off on their own that make the easiest prey for the lions.  They separate from the flock and the shepherd.  Don’t justify your absence from fellowship,  start justifying the opportunities to grow together as the body.