The Doctrine of Fellowship - The Cornerstone of our Relationship with God

Unless you walk in Lifestyle Fellowship with God it is Impossible to Operate in Anointing and Power in the Kingdom

Apr 30, 2024

Walking in lifestyle fellowship is the very cornerstone of our relationship to God and it is impossible to operate in anointing and power in the Kingdom without practicing it.

God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship **with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Corinthians 1:9)

Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship **has light with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14)

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. (2 Corinthians 13:14)

Fellowship is defined as the spiritual condition of a born-again believer with respect to God (or with respect to another believer who is likewise in fellowship) when he or she has no unconfessed sins as described in 1 John 1:5-10:

And this is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. (6) If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; (7) but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. (8) If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (9) If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (10) If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. (1 John 1:5-10)

The principle is that since all have sinned and fallen short of the righteousness of God (Romans 3:23), then it follows that the only righteousness available to us is that which is imputed to us in Christ.

The grounds on which this can happen is detailed in 1 John 1:9, which tells us that God forgives our sin when we confess it from a repentant heart. The word “confess” is homologeo in the Greek and is in the present subjunctive active. The Greek word means “to confess or acknowledge” and has the connotation of listing or numbering. The present tense is the continuous tense, which implies it needs to be a lifestyle practice and the active voice means it is up to me to provoke myself to do the action.

In the following we will study:

The Doctrine of Fellowship in Scripture
How to Stay in Fellowship with God and One Another
The Spiritual Dynamics that result

Doctrine of Fellowship in Scripture

The word translated “fellowship” in the Koine Greek is koinonia, which is also translated “participate” and “sharing” in the NASB. It implies the idea of being bound together or being in partnership and co-participants with someone. The concept also embodies the idea of spiritual union and communion, which is why we have to be operationally righteous when we come into the presence of God, because God cannot fellowship or commune with unrighteousness.

We see the implications spelled out in the following passages:

But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear. (Isaiah 59: 2)

Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14)

Now then let the fear of the Lord be upon you; be very careful what you do, for the Lord our God will have no part in unrighteousness, or partiality, or the taking of a bribe. (2 Chronicles 19:7)

The bottom line is that lifestyle fellowship with God is the very heart and cornerstone of our Christian walk and yet the principle and the practice has truly been lost to much of the mainstream church in this nation with disastrous results.

We’ve Lost our Grasp of Lifestyle Fellowship

If you ask pastors if they believe the doctrine in general, they will tell you that they do, but the majority somehow have lost or never grasped the idea of walking in lifestyle fellowship.

Remaining continuously in fellowship and constantly available to the renewing power of God the Holy Spirit requires that we keep a “short sin account,” and “rebound” through immediate confession every time we sin.

Unfortunately, dealing with sin is not popular in our self-serving world and so there is a tendency in churches to euphemize sin as a “problem” or an “area of weakness” and in various other ways that disguise the destructive impact it has on our lives and on our relationship with God. The end result is that we no longer see sin as the evil that it is, and thus we likewise have lost the thrust of the doctrine of repentance and confession.

But we must understand that only in fellowship with God are we available to the life transforming power and anointing of the Holy Spirit:

For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. (6) For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace (7) because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, (8) and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:5-8)

In the flesh (out of fellowship) we are “not even able to” subject ourselves to the law of God (v. 7), because this is only possible in and through the power of the Spirit:

And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Out of fellowship, we cannot operate in the anointing of the Spirit to receive insight into the word or to operate in any of the various gifts of the Spirit:

As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him. (1 John 2:27)

For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; (9) to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, (10) and to another the effecting of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues. (1Corinthians 12:8-10)

Once we realize that we can do nothing in our own strength, then we will draw near to God and draw upon His infinite supply of divine strength and grace.

Again, we must be in right relationship having no unconfessed sin for this supply to be available to us, because God cannot fellowship with sin. However, in fellowship with God, His power is perfected in our weakness, and our weakness is perfected in absolute loving obedience and submission to Him.

Spiritual vs Carnal Believers

We should be reminded, however, that true obedience requires that the obedience be immediate, complete, and joyful.

Therefore, at any moment believers are either

“Spiritual” and operating in relationship/fellowship with God, or
“Carnal” and removed from relationship and communion with Him.

The Apostle Paul deals with this concept repeatedly in his writings. Consider 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 for example:

And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh as to babes in Christ. (2) I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, (3) for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? (1 Corinthians 3:1-3)

The word “brethren” tells us that Paul is addressing believers. The words “flesh” and “fleshly” are translated “carnal” in the KJV, and are translations of the Koine Greek word sarkikos (4559 – Strongs Concordance) which is from sarx (4561), **the Greek word for “flesh.”

Sarx (flesh) **is a symbol of the entire domain of our fallen nature in the Greek New Testament, a state in which sin has dominion over us.

These are synonyms of psuche (5590 – “soul”) and psuchikos (5591 – “soulish”) in the Greek, because these also carry with them the idea of man’s affinity for his natural sinful propensities or baser instincts.

“Spiritual” is pneumatikos (4152) and comes from pneuma (4151), the word translated “Spirit.” It conveys the idea of being “available to the assistance of the Holy Spirit” according to The Complete Word Study New Testament by Zodhiates.

Paul tells us in Romans 7:18:

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. (Romans 7:18)

In the flesh, I do not have the power to live for Christ. Moreover, this power is essential to our functioning in the Body of Christ:

Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, (6) who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (2 Corinthians 3:5-6)

Psalm 66:18 tells us that God does not hear our prayer when we have iniquity or wickedness in our hearts (unconfessed sin), unless, of course, our prayer starts with repentance and confession:

If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear; (Psalm 66:18)

He who turns away his ear from listening to the law, Even his prayer is an abomination. (Proverbs 28:9)

We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing, and does His will, He hears him. (John 9:31)

God Cannot Fellowship With Sin

God the Father and God the Holy Spirit withdrew from God the Son when He was imputed with our sin on Calvary (Matthew 27:46; Psalm 22). How much more should we be assured that God cannot and will not fellowship with us when we have unconfessed sin in our life?

Unconfessed or “active sin” will always separate us from and prevent us from communing with God. God is light (perfect righteousness) and in Him there is no darkness (unrighteousness or sin) at all (1 John 1:5).

We must understand that in fellowship we abide (dwell) in Him and He abides (dwells) in us. Actually, the Spirit never leaves us once we are sealed with Him, but we grieve Him (Ephesians 4:30) and quench (1 Thessalonians 5:19) His active involvement in our lives when we are out of fellowship due to unconfessed sin.

God makes it clear in the Old Testament that those in lifestyle sin and rebellion are not welcome in His house nor in His presence:

What right has My beloved in My house When she has done many vile deeds? Can the sacrificial flesh take away from you your disaster, So that you can rejoice? (Jeremiah 11:15)

“Sacrificial flesh” refers to the animal sacrifices that the Hebrew offered in the Temple in accordance with the Levitical law. “Disaster” refers to a lifestyle of disobedience and unconfessed sin.

Bring your worthless offerings no longer, Incense is an abomination to Me. New moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies-- I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly.... (15) So when you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you, Yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood. (Isaiah 1:13,15)

In Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible he explains verse 15:

“The expression full of blood, denotes crime and guilt of a high order - as, in murder, the hands would be dripping in blood, and as the stain on the hands would be proof of guilt. It is probably a figurative expression, not meaning literally that they were murderers, but that they were given to injustice; to the oppression of the poor, the widow, etc. The sentiment is, that because they indulged in sin, and came, even in their prayers, with a determination still to indulge it, God would not hear them.”

Sins of Omission

Both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, “Your hands are covered with blood,” is also a picture of not sharing the truth concerning God’s judgment upon sin to a lost world. Failing to share the gospel in our area of influence when God brings the opportunity is still one of the most common sins of omission among believers to this day.

Church surveys of professing Christians in 1990 indicated that only 5% had ever shared their faith with another person.

This principle is attested to by Ezekiel 33:8-9.

When I say to the wicked, 'O wicked man, you will surely die,' and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require from your hand. (9) But if you on your part warn a wicked man to turn from his way and he does not turn from his way, he will die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your life. (Ezekiel 33:8-9)

For instance, if we went into an AIDS ward with a pocket full of pills that would cure AIDS and changed their bed pans, played checkers with them, and in general encouraged the patients but did not give them the pills, then we would have been hating them unto physical death.

However, if having the truth about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the cure for the lost human sin-condition, and don’t offer it to some unsaved soul that we meet then potentially we have hated that person unto eternal damnation, which is easily the most malignant for of hatred possible.

The Apostle John is very clear about such hatred in First John:

The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. (1 John 2:9)

But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes. (1 John 2:11)

Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. (1 John 3:15)

If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. (1 John 4:20)

Christ’s Final Payment for Sin

On Calvary, Christ made the full payment for our sin, one sin at a time. That is why in Isaiah 53:12 "death" is in the intensive plural:

Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, And He will divide the booty with the strong; Because He poured out Himself to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors. (Isaiah 53:12)

Christ died one physical death, but he suffered the equivalent spiritually of a death for each sin of every human being who would ever live, as God poured out his wrath upon the Second Person of the Trinity in the full measure of all human sin, one sin at a time.

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; (2) and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. (1 John 2:1-2)

Thus he redeemed (purchased from the slave market of sin) every member of the human race. He bought the title deed of the soul of every human being from the slave market of sin, much like we would buy the mortgage on a house as an investment.

Then by the grace of God made possible by Christ's complete payment (God’s righteousness demands a payment for each and every sin), God offers that title deed to our soul to us in Christ conditioned upon our receiving Christ as Lord and Savior by faith and faith alone.

Note that he had to give us a package deal in Christ. It would not benefit us to be the sole owners of our soul, because we could not negotiate death, let alone the point at which God will destroy everything by fire and intense heat (2 Peter 3:12) and make a new heaven and a new earth. So we are placed into Christ and into the family of God and become co-inheritors with Christ to God's riches in glory (Romans 8:14-17).

It is important to understand that we do not go to eternal damnation or Hell for our sins, but only for not accepting Christ’s payment for our sin by receiving Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

Christ created a spiritual account for each of us at Calvary that included a payment for every sin we would commit in our lifetime, from the first sin when we reached the age of the knowledge of God to the last sin before we die. When we satisfy the heart condition of faith in Christ to receive salvation as the unmerited grace of God, then that account is placed to our spiritual account.

It is the first of our inheritance in Christ. In the moment of salvation we are placed into Christ “positionally” at the right hand of God the Father, and are made from that point forward “the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). When God in eternity future looks back into the fullness of time (God created the dimension of time but does not live in it), He sees our ultimate sin debt as zero overlaid as it were by Christ's complete payment.

How to Stay in Fellowship with God and One Another

Therefore, we are made sinless, and the righteousness of God in Christ. This is called positional righteousness. We are clothed in Christ and wrapped in the cloak of His righteousness (Galatians 3:27). Christ’s righteousness is inputted to our account through His substitutionary death on our behalf. He literally took our punishment upon Him, and died in our place, paying our sin debt in full!

However, before God can seal us and indwell us with His Holy Spirit of promise, we must be “operationally” righteous. To accomplish this, God must transfer the payment from our spiritual escrow account to our active sin account in order to bring our current balance to zero. This happens in the twinkling of an eye, but the dynamic is none-the-less required.

The Holy Spirit’s Two Primary Functions

It is only at this point that God places or translates us into the Kingdom of His dear Son, and into the inner circle of being in fellowship with Him. Immediately thereafter, the Holy Spirit starts to perform His two primary functions in us.

The first is to lead us into all truth, but we need to be reading and acting upon the word in order to facilitate that process. As we read the word and then respond in obedience to the word in faith, the Holy Spirit writes that word on the fleshly tablets of our heart. It is in this way that we become progressively more like Christ. We choose to obey, then the Spirit gives us the power to act on our choice, and our faithfulness is rewarded with more faith. It is in this way that we progressively appropriate His life within us.

Secondly, the Spirit begins to kill everything that is alive in us that was not alive in Christ. He does this through conviction, discipline, and through transforming our "liker" from the inside-out supernaturally into the likeness of Christ's "liker." The result is that progressively we start to like the things of God more and the things of the world less!

Lifestyle of Fellowship

But this process only goes on while we are in fellowship (having no unconfessed sins). The first time we sin the process comes to an immediate halt, and does not resume until we apply the provision of 1 John 1:9. When we confess our sins He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins (all the sin we name as long as we are sincere and are not trying to hide any), and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.

This last part means that the Holy Spirit also applies the payments for all our active sins of which we are unaware. Since sin is anything that falls short of the righteousness of God, and His ways are as far above our ways as the heavens are above the earth, then we can have both sins of omission and commission of which we are unaware!

Keep in mind that as our sins are confessed and come under the blood (Christ’s payment) God removes them as far as the east is from the west and remembers them no longer (Psalm 103:12; Isaiah 43:25; Micah 7:19). Not that God has a bad memory; He simply has a perfect "forgetter."

I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, And I will not remember your sins. (Isaiah 43:25)

So unlike worldly fathers who have a habit of constantly reminding us of past sins, God removes even His memory of the sin once it is confessed and under the blood.

Therefore, if we let the memory of the sin immobilize us or delay us from returning into full kingdom participation, then we are playing into the enemy’s hands, because that is exactly what he wants us to do! And the powers of darkness will keep reminding you of your sin in order to bring you under a condemnation that God never intended.

It is unbelief and lack of faith to hold yourself to a more severe judgment than God does, and not to accept His forgiveness as full and sufficient since it represents the blood payment of Christ.

Immediately, when we confess from a pure and sincere heart, then God applies the payment from our sin escrow account to our active sins and our active sin debt goes back to zero. We are wrapped back in the mantle of Christ's righteousness and placed back into fellowship, and the Holy Spirit becomes active in us again.

Keeping a short sin account, rebound, and lifestyle confession are all terminologies for staying in fellowship with God as a lifestyle and thus being perpetually available to the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. This concept is clear even in the Old Testament as we can vividly see in King David’s writing in Psalm 32 (also see Psalm 51):

When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away Through my groaning all day long. (4) For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. Selah. (5) I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I did not hide; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD"; And You forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah. (6) Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to You in a time when You may be found; Surely in a flood of great waters they will not reach him. (Psalms 32:3-6)

Beloved, this ongoing dynamic of redemption is powerful and can work as rapidly as we are diligent to stay available to it.

Therefore, new believers that stay in fellowship every minute possible for the first year of their life in Christ can be available to the transforming work of the Spirit more minutes in one year than someone sitting in a pew for 20 years that does not understand and apply the principle.

Spiritual Growth in Christ

Of course, this requires that the new believers read the word and pray and evangelize in order not to fall into lifestyle sin. We must be faithful to do the threefold function of believers:

Our priesthood;
Our ministry to buildup and edify the body of Christ (other believers); and
Our ministry of reconciliation, or our ambassadorship to the lost.

The dynamic of redemption is not a one-time event at salvation, but rather and ongoing process that is constantly creating the life of Christ in us and the things of that life around us, from “faith unto faith”, and “glory unto glory.” That is, we go from one position in Christ to a progressively more advanced position in Christ as we grow spiritually.

The following verses speak of the supernatural dynamic of redemption working in us through the Spirit and the word:

…Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; (13) for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12a-13)

And for this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me. (Colossians 1:29)

Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, (Ephesians 3:20)

And for this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received from us the word of God's message, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe. (1 Thessalonians 2:13)

Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you-- unless indeed you fail the test? (2 Corinthians 13:5)

But we all, ….., are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory (one position in Christ to the next), just as from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. (17) For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith (from one position of faith to the next greater one); as it is written, "BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH." (Romans 1:16-17)

Biblical Guidelines for Confession and Repentance

And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your transgressions. (26) But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive your transgressions. (Mark 11:25-26)

If therefore you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, (24) leave your offering there before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering. (Matthew 5:23)

In both of these gospel teachings, Jesus is teaching the principles related to avoiding being out of fellowship and ineffective due to unconfessed sin.

The issue in Mark 11:25-26 is that God is not going to hear our prayer if we are out of fellowship because of unforgiveness.

In Matthew 5:23 the issue is that the gift will be an act of man’s good works and therefore would not be accorded to the individual as righteousness nor worthy of reward until the dispute with the brother is put right. Putting it right could require confession, asking for forgiveness as well as forgiving, an apology, and in some cases restitution. Once you have resolved this issue and are returned to fellowship, then present your offering and it will be accorded to you as righteousness.

Examine Yourself

God’s word indicates in 1 Corinthians 11:28-32 that it is especially important that we examine ourselves and confess our sins before we partake of the emblems of Christ’s sacrifice in communion, in order to avoid being disciplined by God.

But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. (29) For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly. (30) For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. (31) But if we judged ourselves rightly, we should not be judged. (32) But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord in order that we may not be condemned along with the world. (1 Corinthians 11:28-32)

Verse 30 warns us that MANY are weak, sick, and a number are dead, because they partook of the sacrament of communion while out of fellowship with God. There is good reason to believe that the churches of this nation are filled with people who are sick and dying because of failing to act in obedience to this mandate as many churches do not emphasize confessing your sins as a lifestyle. God is love, but it is dangerous to approach Him except on His terms and by His directions.

Walking in Victory Over our Personal Sin

Unless we maintain a lifestyle of obedience, confession, and fellowship, we will not grow or be of use to Christ or be pleasing to God! But if we will cleanse ourselves and remain in fellowship with God as we are commanded to do, then we will have life and it abundantly in productive service to God:

Therefore, if a man cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work. (2 Timothy 2:21)

True believers who practice confession will also experience the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

However, the true riches of God’s blessing in the gospel, the “Good News” to all of mankind, is more than victory over our sin and living in joy here below, and even more than eternal life in the kingdom of God; it is Jesus Christ in us the hope of glory!

Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. (2) Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. (3) For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (4) When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. (5) Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. (6) For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, (7) and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them. (8) But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. (9) Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, (10) and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him— (11) a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all. (Colossians 3:1-11)

Conclusion

Believers can only be transformed progressively into the likeness of Christ while they are in fellowship. Out of fellowship, believers are carnal, fleshly, and powerless against their sin nature since they are not available to operate in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Believers must be in fellowship in order to have on the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6). Out of fellowship, believers are offering an open door to Satan, the enemy of their soul, and to the powers and principalities of darkness in violation to God’s mandate in Ephesians 4:27, which instructs us not to give the devil any opportunities.

Believers who remain in lifestyle fellowship will grow and advance in the faith and their progress will be evident to those around them (2 Timothy 2:21).

However, believers who spend the majority of their time out of fellowship will be stunted in their growth and spiritual understanding, and will be unstable in their faith, and of little or no use to God, constantly learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth.

As new believers, we should abdicate (give up) our rights to ourselves and ask God to forgive us of our sins immediately upon sinning, thus maintaining a lifestyle of fellowship with God. We should desire to give our entire life to God with no reservation, no qualifications, and nothing held back.

We should discipline ourselves to start each day with a quiet time with God if it is only for 15-20 minutes, in which we confess our sins and read some scripture and ask Him to guide us through the day. A “morning watch” or quiet time is recommended by almost all the heroes of the faith since Pentecost, and should be time spent meeting and fellowshipping with God personally, not just studying. We should also give God thanks daily for what is freely ours in Christ!

We should pray for God to send us people for our testimony and be prepared to give it, as well as to be able to present the gospel and to lead someone in a prayer of salvation! We should also do everything possible to buildup and edify other believers, as well as consider them as more important than ourselves (Philippians 2:3).

Believers can grow as fast as they want to in the plan and purpose of Christ; it is a matter of commitment and discipline to God’s instructions in scripture, dying to self, and being submitted in all things to Christ. God will bring supernatural increase when we are willing to put Christ first in our lives and to live by His example and for His glory.

But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (34) So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own (Matthew 6:33-34).

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