All Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible 1995 Ed. (NASB95)

We live in a world that draws us to increasing disconnectedness and isolationism. Even while we have countless means of interacting with multitudes of other people, the very media giving us this ability cut us off from much genuine and human relationships. What we get from the Internet and even cell phones usually consists of short bursts of disconnected information that’s divorced from the personality of the person sending it to us. It is incredibly hard to find friendship, communion, understanding, and affection through the use of social media tools.

This poses a dangerous threat to the God-pleasing exercise of Christian love among fellow believers, and presents us with many challenges to overcome in our faithful practice of the Christian life. For living a life for Jesus Christ is inherently communal and others-oriented. In this devotional, I want to show you why you can’t be exercising biblical faith in the Lord Jesus without exercising brotherly affection for His followers. This is therefore one of the best ways to know that you’ve been saved through faith (Eph. 2:8).

Faith Implies a Family

Although the Internet seeks to rip this natural instinct from our hearts, it’s nonetheless true that human beings are inherently communal beings. From right after the beginning, God said, “It is not good for man to be alone”. So, He created a helper for him, Eve. Ever since, people have always thrived, and craved participation in, families.

If this is true for humans in general, how much truer it is for those who are saved from their sins by the Lord Jesus. It’s more true for us because sin is innately divisive in its effects. The ultimate sin, pride, is an attitude of selfish self-sufficiency. It’s not only a manifestation of self-worship, but of the contempt and belittling of others. Pride makes us seem more important than others, so we don’t recognize our need for them. However, no matter how much it may appear that we can be satisfied on our own, we are constantly in need of the help of others. On the flip side, we are always needed by others. As the saying goes, “no man is an island.”

Since the effect of sin is to keep us from treating others as an essential part of our lives, it follows that the salvation received from Jesus frees us from selfishness to relate well to others. Obviously, God commanded His covenant people long ago to “love your neighbor as yourself,” and the injunction still stands. When we’re saved from our sins, then we begin to see God, Jesus, ourselves, and others as His revelation describes them. Hence, true faith in Jesus motivates us to treat people according to the value that God Himself has given them. This is most important for fellow believers, since there’s no one in the world in whom God delights more than His saved children.

The eternal significance of salvation includes an interconnectedness among all with faith in Jesus. Because God has not determined to redeem people from the fall and curse on creation simply as individuals, but as a race. If He created humanity as a social and communal creature, then He is recreating humanity in the same way. The end goal of our salvation is that “all the nations of the earth will fear the Lord”. When we look at the final description of the everlasting state of things in Revelation, we see a city in which “every tribe, tongue, people, and nation” will dwell and worship God and the Lamb forever. In other words, God began humanity as a family, and He’s currently in the process of perfecting humanity as a family.

God’s Children and Christ’s Body

There are two metaphors that are most prominent in the descriptions of that group which God has decided to save from sin. The first is “the children of God,” and the second is “the body of Christ”. Both of these tell us that to be a Christian is to be an essential part of the lives of other Christians.

 Believers in Jesus aren’t God’s children by virtue of their natural creation in God’s image, but because of their recreation in Christ’s image. John makes this clear in his Gospel, and in his first epistle, 1 John. Jesus tells the Jews in John 8 that “’you are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father’”. Thus, according to nature and character, all people are conceived as the offspring of Satan. In order to be a child of God, a person must be reborn, or born again. John declares this in John 1:12-13, where he writes,

“But to as many as received Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God; who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

And just like in a natural family the nature of God’s children gives them certain attitudes toward their fellow children of God. John goes on to write in 1 John 5 that “the one who loves the Father loves the child born of Him”. That is, if you now love God as your Father, then you’ll inevitably love those who share the same Father. Why? Because you both have the same ultimate goals, affections, and you thus reflect the same heavenly character of the Father. You cannot treat God as your Father without treating other believers as your brothers and sisters. When a person repents and trusts in Jesus, he’s immediately attracted to those who share the same heavenly faith, and wants to live among them.

Peter makes this exact point in 1 Peter 1:22, which says,

“Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren . . .”

According to the Bible, “obedience to the truth” is that submission that Paul refers to as “the obedience of faith”. To initially obey “the truth” is the same as believing the gospel, which is the only acceptable response to it. Thus, Peter is saying that one of the main effects of believing the gospel is receiving an ability to genuinely love “the brethren” in God’s family.

The second metaphor of believers being “the body of Christ” likewise conveys the necessity of believers having communion and community together. This picture is used at large throughout the New Testament, and especially in Paul’s writings. He imagines believers as Christ’s body in at least three of his letters, and all get at the same point. All Christians are inseparable and integral parts of all other Christians, especially in localized areas.

Paul sums this idea up in Romans 12:4-5, saying,

“For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”

Put differently, just as every part of a human body all belong to each other, since they are essential to the proper functioning of the body, so also every Christian in Christ’s body belongs to every other member, and needs them all. When you become a worshiper of Jesus, you also become a crucial and dependent component of the gigantic spiritual organism of His followers. Since we all share the same main earthly and eternal goals, we have to work together to accomplish them. You cannot fulfill the purpose for which God has left you on earth without interaction and relationship with your fellow body members.

There’s yet a third and last reason why faith in Christ gives you indispensable fellowship with other believers. This is the fact that our faith in the Lord isn’t automatically perfect and complete, but is dynamic. This is to say that first believing the gospel doesn’t make you perfect, but simply begins a lifelong process of growing in the likeness of Jesus. This process is often called “sanctification,” or progressive “holiness”.

When you begin the Christian life, you begin as a thoroughly imperfect and needy person, like a newborn infant. In order to grow in your faithfulness and obedience to the Lord, you need regular and consistent examples, encouragements, instruction, and counsel from other believers. And you especially need this help from believers who are more experienced and knowledgeable than you. Just as young members of a natural family need the help and guidance of the older, so also all believers of varying maturity need the wisdom and knowledge of their brethren to teach them how to grow in all the virtues of the Lord Jesus.

How Fellowship Confirms the Genuineness of Your Faith

So how does this relationship between faith and fellowship enable you to continue being assured of your forgiven and saved condition before God? The primary way this works is in the fact that your experience and enjoyment of brethren in Christ is evidence that you belong to God’s family, and have been made a “partaker of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1). Flowing from this reality is your experience of God’s love and affection through the treatment of your brothers and sisters. In other words, when other believers treat you as someone who is right with God, and heaven-bound, then you have testimony from it that your status is a reality. Furthermore, in your brethren’s loving interactions with you, they will inevitably remind you of the Gospel that has promised your forgiveness and eternal salvation through sincere dependence on the Lord Jesus.

Although it’s possible to know that you’re saved without any interaction with other believers, being apart from their regular fellowship puts tremendous strain on your full-orbed remembrance and practice of the Gospel. It’s much easier to be led astray by lies about your spiritual state before God when you’re by yourself. Besides, I’ve already noted above that true faith in Jesus will inevitably result in love and devotion to other believers as members of God’s household.

The Challenge of Genuine Brotherly Fellowship

Today, most believers in western society are held back from experiencing the closeness, affection, and unity of New Testament-modeled Christian love. Most of us have extreme difficulty, or complete failure, in consistently treating our brothers and sisters as God has made them to be. This is one of the chief areas of failure in western Christianity, so let me provide a few methods of practicing biblical Chrisitan fellowship, so that your assurance, joy, and fruitfulness can grow through the Holy Spirit.

  1. Find a church whose members are willing to sacrifice time for each other. This looks like brethren taking intense interest in callings and problems of others mainly through extensive conversation. If you’re around believers that love to learn about each other’s lives, then this is a sign of a healthy fellowship.
  2. Develop a strong friendship with at least one person in your church. You need a close brother or sister so you can bear each other’s burdens, confess your sins to each other, pray for each other, and remind each other of the Bible’s truth. Don’t be content to be a part of a church, and yet to have no true friends that fellowship with you outside of church.
  3. Invite your fellow church members into your life pursuits by asking for help, asking for prayer, and sharing matters of praise to God.
  4. When asking your brethren how they’re doing, use a specific question like, “Did anything encouraging or exciting happen this week?”
  5. When finding out how your closest friend is doing, regularly ask something challenging like, “How has the Lord been growing you recently?”

If you put a few of these suggestions into practice, you’ll find that you’ll enjoy deeper fellowship, more regular encouragement, greater joy, and increased opportunities to serve your brethren in Christ. Along with these blessings, your salvation in Christ will be more regularly confirmed in your heart.

In closing, I would encourage you with the command of Peter in his first letter:

“Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart . . .” – 1 Pet. 1:22