Fellowship of the Spirit

"If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, Fulfil ye my joy." Philippians 2:1,2

We see here that Paul's ideal of joy was found in fellowship. He did not want to be a hermit, a recluse. He wanted to be a man of godly fellowship. The world has a monopoly in the social realm. It offers youth what it calls fellowship. It’s often a fellowship of empty pleasure and vapid waste.

Does the child of God not need what Paul calls "The fellowship of the Spirit"? What is this fellowship but the fellowship with others in Christ, about Christ, with Christ? Paul seems fixated on the analogy between the fellowship of the world and the fellowship of the saints. He says in another place, "Be not drunk with wine, but be ye filled with the Spirit." What does he mean? What connection is he making? He is saying that both spirits are forms of self-forgetfulness. Wine momentarily lifts a man out of his concerns and makes him laugh with others. The Spirit also lifts the child of God above his cares and makes him a companion with his fellows. God's wine, like the world's wine, drowns out the darkness of our past. But where the world tries to drown it in oblivion, the Spirit stirs it up in love, lifting the weight from the soul, and makes one a faithful friend to his brother.

Consolation in Christ, comfort in love, and bowels of mercy are kinsmen to Christian fellowship. By the Spirit's design, this vitality breaks the soul's loneliness. What makes my soul lonely is the weight of my past. If I am not a faithful companion to others, it is because I am still in communion with myself. Is there no elixir of self-forgetfulness? Is there no cure that can set me free without corrupting me? Is there a remedy for care that can destroy it without killing the life? Yes, the Spirit alone has such a cure. The Spirit can give me rest. Rest from self. The Spirit can lift the latch from the door that prevents my brother from entering in. The Spirit alone can remove the depression that makes me seek the shadows. He alone can give me the joy of heart that craves companionship. A joy that cannot, must not be alone. The Spirit births a need for brotherhood which the freed soul alone can enjoy. A joy in communing friendship which only a heart at rest can experience. Apart from the Spirit, I will continue to wander in solitary places. But the days of true fellowship have come when I have received the consolation of Christ.