The Divine Fellowship is Everything in Our Christian Life and Church Life

The divine fellowship is the flow of the divine life in us, the Triune God as the Spirit flowing in and out of us, and it also is the fellowship in spirit with our fellow believers.

The divine life which we have received through regeneration is a fellowship, a flow, and this divine fellowship is everything in our Christian life, our married life, our church life, and our Christian work. We need to realize that if we don’t have the divine fellowship, we don’t have God – God comes to us as fellowship and in the fellowship of the divine life.

The reason the Body of Christ is not yet built up and the Bride of Christ is not yet made ready for the Lord to return is because most believers today don’t pay attention to the divine fellowship in their Christian life. From time to time they are forced to return to the Lord and touch Him in a desperate way, but who cultivates and maintains a good vertical and horizontal fellowship of the divine life today?

Who is like the Lord Jesus, who, as He did this and that, He was conversing with the Father in the fellowship of the divine life?

We really need to see that in our Christian life the divine fellowship is everything. If we see this, we will allow the cross to operate in us to break through and remove any obstacles to the divine fellowship, so that we would have a proper vertical fellowship with God and a good fellowship with the fellow believers.

Our Christian Life is a Life of the Fellowship of the Divine Life

God is life, and this life is not static: you don’t just “receive life, have it, and that’s it”; God’s life is a flow, a fellowship, something in continual motion. The divine life we received at the time of our regeneration is a fellowship, a flow, something moving. Our Christian life is a life of the fellowship of the divine life.

We Christians are very different from any other human beings on earth – we have vertical fellowship with God, and we have horizontal fellowship with our fellow believers. We enter into these two aspects of the divine fellowship by the two spirits, the divine Spirit and our human spirit.

This is an interwoven fellowship, which means that the fellowship with God causes us to have more fellowship with the believers, and at the same time we have fellowship with the saints we also have fellowship with God!

The Lord Jesus as our pattern “answered and said” (Matt. 11:25) – no one asked Him anything, but He answered and said something to the ones around Him. The Lord was in a constant fellowship and communication with the Father.

Today as we fellowship with the saints, we also fellowship with the Lord, and this “interwoven fellowship” brings God into man and man into God. By being in the divine fellowship in its horizontal and vertical aspects God is interwoven with us, and we are mingled with God.

God comes to us in the fellowship – in the fellowship with the Lord and in the fellowship with the saints. If we don’t have fellowship, we don’t have God. If we don’t have fellowship with the Lord and with our fellow believers, we don’t get more God. Our Christian life is a life of the fellowship of the divine life.

The Divine Fellowship is Everything to us!

The reality of our human life on the earth today is Christ living in us, and Christ can live in us when we are in the fellowship of the divine life.

Our human life on earth is not real unless we are in the flow of the divine life, in the divine fellowship. Our marriage life and our family life are not real, sweet, genuine, and filled with meaning unless we live a married life in the divine fellowship.

The Lord needs to shine on us and show us that even something as sweet and intimate – humanly speaking – as the marriage life needs to be in the divine fellowship. Our church life and our working for the Lord need to be in the divine fellowship. When we meet with the saints, we need to simply express the divine fellowship and enter into the divine fellowship in its horizontal aspect.

Our meetings – whether service meetings, prayer meetings, ministry meetings, fellowship meetings, coordination meetings, Lord’s Table meeting, prophesying meetings, etc – should be in the divine fellowship. Even our practical coordination concerning the services in the church need to be in the divine fellowship.

If we don’t have enough fellowship in the divine life, we are abnormal Christians. There needs to be much more fellowship with God, with the saints, among the churches, among different age groups, among different countries and continents, etc.

All the churches on the earth need to be in the one unique divine fellowship, which brings in the oneness of the Body of Christ. May the Lord unveil us and cause us to see that the divine fellowship is everything to us.

Our Fellowship is Deepened Through the Cross

On the one hand the divine fellowship is by the Spirit, and on the other hand the fellowship is through the cross.

Without the application of the cross, our fellowship is superficial. There are many obstacles in our being to the fellowship of the divine life, and even though many times we enjoy our fellowship with the Lord and with the saints, there’s a lot of opposition, hindrances, obstacles, and resistance to the fellowship of life in us.

We need to allow the cross to operate in us to free us from our sinful self, our peculiarities, our preferences, our opinions, our personal desires, our hidden ambitions, and all the things that the fellowship brings to light. Just allow the cross to operate, and then the Spirit will come in as the ointment to add more God into your being (see Lev. 14:6-10, 14-18).

Without the Spirit and the cross, we cannot have real fellowship. We cannot have real fellowship when we are in our natural man or “only with those that we like” – that’s not fellowship. Fellowship brings us to touch the Lord as the Spirit, and then the cross operates in us to eliminate the germs, the problems, the issues, and all the obstacles.

The cross deepens our fellowship with Christ and with one another. We are all exposed when we come into the fellowship of the divine life, and the cross eliminates and terminates whatever the light of life shines on (1 John 1:7). When we walk in the light, the negative things are eliminated and we have a deeper fellowship with one another as we apply the blood of Christ.

In the whole universe, there is only one thing that can take away all the obstacles between us and God and between us and one another – it is the cross of Christ. When we exercise our spirit to touch the divine Spirit, the cross operates in us and we have fellowship with God and with one another.

Lord Jesus, we treasure the divine fellowship. Operate in us through the cross so that the divine life may flow freely in us, out of us, and among us in the church life today. Lord, through the cross remove the soul life and the sinful self so that there would be a sweet fellowship between us and You and between us and the saints. May our family life, our married life, our work life, our church life, be all in the divine fellowship. Lord, we want to live here, in the divine fellowship, so that we may gain more God and build up the Body!

References and Further Reading

• This sharing is inspired from brother Ed Marks’ sharing in this message and portions in, The Triune God to Be Life to the Tripartite Man (ch. 18), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, ITERO spring 2013 “The Experience, Growth, and Ministry of Life for the Body“, week 1 entitled, Living in the Fellowship of the Divine Life.
• Buy this morning revival book online via Living Stream Ministry.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # The flowing of life divine, / In spirit so sweetly flows— / The overflowing life divine, / Nourishing my spirit so— / Bringing the Triune God’s fullness.
  # Through the Cross, O Lord, I pray, / Put my soul-life all away; / Make me any price to pay, / Full anointing to receive.
  # Fellowship is deepened / Thru the cross of death; / Fellowship is lifted / By the Spirit’s breath.
• Pictures credit: taken by me, see on twitter here and here.