“Got Fellowship?” Think About Feast, Function, Fruit!

Welcome marathoners in and for Christ. (1 Corinthians 9:24; Hebrews 12:1; 2 Timothy 4:7) Exhausted, depleted from running the Godly, good, and being-a-blessing-to-others race? Welcome. Sit. Relax. Let’s feast.

Feast of the Heart exists to help bring about Christ-centered “reformation, revival, and constructive revolution” (Francis Schaeffer, Death in the City) so that God will be glorified and people blessed.

Reformation… we seek to abide by and serve up the true truth, pure doctrine of the Bible

Revival… we seek to model biblical Christians living in word and deed

Constructive Revolution… we seek to spread the true gospel right where God has planted us with urgency, compassion, and radical self-abandonment

Community Birthed of Trinity… Spiritually Alive or Stillborn? 

How strongly does the Holy Spirit within you urge, convict, entice, create an undying hunger and thirst for fellowship with the Saints? I’m talking about a deep and abiding and transforming fellowship. Not a bunch of beers with the guys to just fun ‘n foam over a football game, but the sort of unashamed transparency, trust, sharing, and mutual edification of God’s family members and mutual friends of Christ?

When one’s name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life before time, and the Holy Spirit fulfills God’s effectual calling at just the right time by a change of heart that opens the eyes to God’s holiness, our sinfulness and need of repentance, justification, and faith… shame is eradicated and we’re brought into a whole new family. This is a FACT. The question is are we living in a FICTIONAL version of the faith? Do our new, born-again lives still reflect a deep sense of shame? Does The Supernatural Body of Christ treat me… do I treat them… as God’s family in Christ, by the Spirit? Or more like the dysfunctional families of our biological origins?

Yes, that’s how far too many namesakes of Christ live… like family members of the world, controlled by the flesh, and pleasing the devil rather than the divine reality of being born-again into a new family, with no more shame, on mission TOGETHER to transform the world.

Bonhoeffer’s “Life Together”: Fellowship Tested True in the Fires of Life and Death

• “All we can say, therefore, is: the community of Christians springs solely from the Biblical and Reformation message of the justification of man through the grace of God alone; this alone is the basis of the longing of Christian for one another.”

• “Without Christ we should not know God, we could not call upon Him, nor come to Him. But without Christ we could not know our brother, nor could we come to him.”

• “Thus God Himself taught us to meet one another as God has met us in Christ. “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.” (Rom 15:7)

• “My brother is rather the other person who has been redeemed by Christ, delivered from sin, and called to faith and eternal life.”

• “The more genuine and deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and His work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, for eternity.”

• “Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ Jesus in which we may participate.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

A Shameless Family of Fellowship in the Church Body… Co-Redeemers in Christ!

Psalm 55 “But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend,”

Psalm 119 “I am a friend to all who fear you, to all who follow your precepts.”

Psalm 133 “How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity! It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron’s beard, down upon the collar of his robes. It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion. For there the LORD bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.”

Matthew 23 “But you are not to be called `Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers.”

Mark 10 “Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Luke 24 “Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them;”

John 13 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I d you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

John 15 “My command is this: Love each other as I do you.”

Romans 12 “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.”

2 Corinthians 6 “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?  What harmony is there between Christ and Belial^[1] ? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”

Gal 2:9-10 “James, Peter and John, those reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the Jews. All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.”

Gal 6:2-7 “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, for each one should carry his own load. Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor. Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.”

Phil 1:3-8 “I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.”

Phil 2:1-7 “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.”

Col 2:2-7 “My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments. For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how orderly you are and how firm your faith in Christ is. So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”

1 Thess 4:16-18 “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.”

Heb 13:1 “Keep on loving each other as brothers.”

1 Pet 2:16-17 “Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the King, Jesus Christ.”

1 John 1:3-7 “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But 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, purifies us from all sin.”

1 John 3:12-16 “Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.”

1 John 4:7-13 “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.”

Please Let God’s Word Simmer Down Deep Into Your Heart

… It’s the feast we need; not the famine or crumbs we’ve defaulted to… and are now satisfied to starve on and call it the best we can do. God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit has made a whole new way.

And don’t live hell on earth anymore…

“We must picture hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives with the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment.” (C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters)

Bless you my Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
JohnDoz