FellowshipFellowship with other disciples, living and dead, is another practice essential to the "Christ focus." Some with whom we must have fellowship have been long dead, but they live on and are available to us through writings. Of course, many of these are in the Bible. Others are nearer to us in time, and some are our contemporaries. We need to devote much time to knowing them well. We must above all master the masters. Spiritual reading is one of the major sources of light and strength for the disciple of Jesus. But, as valuable as it is, it cannot take the place of fellowship with other disciples living and walking beside us. When we gather "in the name" of Jesus, we gather to love one another and to be loved, to serve one another and be served. That is why we "go to church." The one sure mark of being his disciple was said by Jesus to be that we love one another in the way he loves us (John 13:34–35). He was prepared to say that you cannot receive his kind of love in your approach to people from anyone else. No one else can bring us there. That is the only Christian exclusiveness, and it is an exclusiveness that takes care of itself. We do not have to "enforce" it. So when we "go to church," we go to love those who are there and to be loved with his agape love. But that love is not confined to when we are "in church." It is for everywhere in life. Church is for catching it and practicing it. It is of absolute importance that you get this right if you are to know Christ. We know Christ in others. Reflect on what goes on within you upon first sighting another disciple. It may be a member of your family or someone at your job, or it may be as you approach your meeting place (your "church"). Is your first thought that they should be blessed by God in every way? That they should be "better" than you are ("In humility regard others as better than yourselves" Phil. 2:3)? Are you prepared to serve them spiritually by lifting them to God in prayer for his utmost gifts to them and by assisting them in their needs? Do you earnestly long that their light should shine in such a way that others would see their good works and glorify God because of them? (Matt. 5:16). It is out of such a heart and overall disposition that we spontaneously and without thinking "rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep" (Rom. 12:15). From Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge. Copyright © 2009 by Dallas Willard. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. | 
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