Acts 2:42 (Esv) And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
If I could for a moment, impose a different perspective on your line of sight? Imagine being a heroin addict. Then, place yourself in a homeless living situation without money, food, or a will to live. Also, any money you have is used to buy more heroin and needles to use it. Sound despairing yet?
Now, slap on about ten more years of hard drug addictions to liquor, crack-cocaine, cocaine, methamphetamine, prescription pills, and whatever other substance that would elude to temporal oblivion.
There yet? No? That's alright, for some it's unimaginable. Trust me here, we aren't even skimming the surface. Nevertheless, all of these blatant failures at fixing an unrepairable internal condition resulted in adaptation. I had to become what everyone wanted me to be. I also had to paint an image of myself that would convince me I was alright when I looked into the mirror. Ultimately I was an expert at "social chameleonism."
Now imagine once again. Christ saves you. Christ teaches you. Christ places you into fellowship with other believers and you desire to devote yourself to the teaching of the word and the breaking of bread and prayer. Do you suppose there would be some sense of anxiety with the paradigm shift? Crackhouse to meeting house? Street corner beggar to redeemed saint? Do you see the dilemma caused?
Finally, at what point do I explode from the utter gratitude for His mercy and grace? Then where do you learn to make adjustments that help you change your perspective from people being targets to people being friends? I wonder if fellowship of the saints was a remedy to the natural inclination our human nature has to surround ourselves with those who reflect what we are on the inside?
edit: To clarify the last line, this tendency to surround ourselves with the unregenerate when we are unregenerate. The principle then applies once we become saved and seek fellowship with believers. Hence the church discipline the Lord taught as well as Paul of putting out unrepentant brethren from the fellowship. In this we would see that fellowship with the redeemed is something to be desired!
What do you say?
2 comments:
Perhaps it is the other way around? Our natural inclination to surround ourselves with people who relect what we are on the inside is there as the "remedy" for the fellowship of the saints. Afterall, God is sovereign, and has always had the plan of the Body and a Bride for His Son. He is the Lamb that was slain from before the foundation of the world, and He has always had His people. So perhaps that inclination is "natural" because of His plan of fellowship with Himself and His people.
But that's just my thoughts...I'm no theologian. :D
I think we are on the same page Sister. The wonder I had in this understanding was that before Christ we seek out fellowship with unsociable, unapproachable, and unregenerate sinners, they are us and we are them. But in Christ, we seek those who have been redeemed. However, for those who have not been in Christian fellowship their entire lives, it is a situation that takes growing accustomed to.
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