7.3 Fellowship

So that you also might have fellowship [koinonia] with us, and truly our fellowship is with and among the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ (1 John 1:3).

Consider these four words – symmorphy and fellowship, identity and belonging. Identity is personal, and it comes from symmorphy. Belonging is social, and it comes from fellowship. As humans, we don’t just have fellowship with God as Father, but we also BELONG inside that fellowship and communion continuously taking place between Father and Son. And this belonging inside this divine Fellowship is very personal to each one of us and is what makes us human.

False Human Identity. In the last lesson, we looked at how humans drive God faraway from themselves by falsely accusing Him. The problem, however, is human identity, how we perceive ourselves, the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, the scenarios of our reality, as we imagine it, that we spin inside the web of our spirit-minds.

For having known God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but they became pointless in their thinking {a false story of self}, and their non-comprehending heart was darkened (Romans 1:21). Unthankfulness is the cause of all false human identity, no matter what personal direction the false story takes. Giving thanks is what welcomes the Father into our soul identity.

Made of Words. Now, think of this. God designed us as humans by word, words anointed by Spirit. The words that design our physic we call DNA, and those words are written all through every cell. The words that design our spirit will be very similar, corresponding directly to the DNA in our physic.

The entirety of our body is made of words – but the Word become flesh expands the meaning of that design into the story of our souls, our self-identity. And as we have seen, our human soul exists right at the junction of spirit and physic, right where the DNA of our spirit connects with the DNA of our physic.

Personal Fellowship. God designed our human souls very specifically, even as specific and detailed, one might say, as the spiritual/physical DNA of our body. In God’s design of our human souls, He placed an ongoing personal fellowship with Him as the center and source of all our human identity, all the story-telling in the human mind.

Your identity is meant to come out from this Personal Fellowship, this continuous conversation with God-All Carrying inside of you. In fact, we could call this human core, “meaning.” My story of self is very complex; I think of all sorts of things. And all my story of self comes out from my continual acknowledgment that God my Father shares my life with me.

The Meaning of My Life. My fellowship with Father inside my own soul is the meaning of my life, and everything I enjoy and like to do comes out from that first meaning.

If anyone loves Me, My word he will keep [guard and watch over], and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and will make Our home with him (John 14:23). The word “make Our home” denotes an intimate closeness of fellowship and belonging. And we “keep” Jesus as Word written all through our hearts entirely through faith, through confidence that He is, a topic we will consider in the next chapter. Jesus is saying, “For the first time in your existence, you will become a human, Father at Home in your heart.”

Inside a Greater Fellowship. How, then, do we define this Personal Fellowship inside our own souls, inside our story of self, with God-All Carrying? John said that it is the same thing as the Fellowship taking place between Father and Son, separate from anything created. But he also said that it is even more than “the same thing.” In fact, this Fellowship of meaning as the source of our story of self, exists inside the dynamics of that greater Fellowship between Father and Son.

Our souls, our human souls, belong inside that Fellowship, each one of us, personally and individually. Yet we also know that God never imposes His Fellowship upon us, it is a relationship of self we must regularly practice.

Father Part of Me. Self, my human self, is a relationship with Father first, before it is anything more. I don’t have to know God for my physic to function by spirit-word. I don’t have to know God for my spirit to function by spirit-word. But for my own self to be human, I begin first and only out from this story-line of fellowship, “Father, You share everything in my life with me, utterly and intimately. Father, You are part of me, part of my very soul.”

Now, Paul makes the alternative self-identity very clear. – Asserting themselves to be wise, they became foolish. And they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness and image of dying man… (Romans 1:22-23).

Personal Identity. We do not view Paul’s words as a “warning” to us, but rather as an escape. This course is not about our “escape,” but about our completion. Yet that which we have escaped gives us an understanding of the complexity and direction of our meaning as humans.

Thus we never allow any “feeling,” no matter how we have once interpreted that feeling, to inform us of anything other than “Father, sharing my life with me, at Home in my heart.” And every spin of the mind that our self-story takes us, comes only out from “Father with me, at Home in my heart” as its source and meaning. This is our personal identity, our deepest sense of belonging.

Designed out from Fellowship. God did not design us as humans “for” fellowship. Rather, we think of it this way. Our design as human souls comes out from Fellowship. And Fellowship as my source MEANS that I exist with Father before any other part of my story can happen. Fellowship is not something I “do” with God. Fellowship with God-All Carrying is what I am before anything I do.

Then, out from that Fellowship with Father that I am, what do I do? John said that our fellowship is with one another. My personal and private Fellowship with Father inside my own heart, then becomes my fellowship with my fellow humans who are complete in Christ as I am.

Beyond-All Knowledge. My fellowship with you comes out from and is shaped by the Fellowship I share with Father that I am. Yet again, John places both the Fellowship with Father that I am AND the fellowship you and I share together INTO that dynamic and ongoing Fellowship that makes Jesus the Son out from Father God.

Let me assure you, however, that I really have no idea what that means, for it is entirely beyond our comprehension. As Paul said – To know even more the surpassing, beyond-all knowledge of the love of Christ, that you might be filled unto and with all the fullness of God. – That you might be filled with a self-story of Father with me.

For the Sake of Others. Yet we have also learned to say, “Father with me, at Home in my heart, sharing all the circumstances of my life with me – FOR the sake of others.” This is a turning that Father and I do together out from what we ARE. Paul calls this turning “synergeoing together making all things GOOD.”

So as my human SOUL, my story of self, comes out from Father with me, it becomes “for your sake.” The reason it does that is that Father and I together are meek and lowly of heart and we think more highly of you than we do of ourselves. The prize and joy we share in our fellowship together is YOU, our treasure and our crown.

Reciprocity. Yet as humans, we are entirely reciprocal. Not only is there a continuous reciprocity going on between Father and me that makes me what I am, but that same reciprocity extends regularly to you and you to me. Thus my inward and personal Fellowship with Father becomes my public and expressed fellowship with you and you with me, equally back and forth. Our fellowship together is constantly coming out from “Father with me for your sake.”

Wow! We are now having a new look at the meaning of Romans 8:28. You see, as you synergeo with God AND as I synergeo with God, our point of connection is called reciprocal fellowship.

Synergeoing with God. We know moreover that those who are actively loving God are synergeoing together with God to turn with purpose all—all things, all entities, all circumstances, all moments—into pure and intrinsic goodness, that is, into the knowledge of God. These are those who are continuously being called as and by the precise details of God’s Pro-Thesis, His set-forth purpose from the beginning, the Blueprint of His House, the Lord Jesus.

Paul is saying that this identity of soul by which we are HUMAN comes out from the precise details of God’s Pro-Thesis, His set-forth purpose, that is, all the Word that is Jesus. Our fellowship together is the “electrical connection” between me synergeoing with God and you synergeoing with God.

“Zapping” One Another. And yes, when I touch you and you touch me, as humans out from God, the reality of that touch ought to blow us right across the country. The reason we are not blown away by the power of our touch is that God made us humans, and fellowship is not only what we are, it is also what we do.

There is nothing more valuable to me than to be able to say, every moment, “Father with me at Home in my heart,” not as an idea, but as the meaning and source of my entire self-story. This Fellowship with Father that I AM, makes me the most valuable thing in the universe. Yet you are that same Fellowship and that same value as well. For that reason, “members of one another” makes us power treasure with power treasure.

Our Fellowship Together. What does God call this joining of Power Treasure with Power Treasure that is our fellowship? He calls it the Body of Christ, the fullness of Christ, the revelation of Jesus Christ inside of creation.

There is nothing more HOLY, that is, DEVOTED, inside of God than our fellowship together as a Community of Christ. Our fellowship is Jesus’ happening, which is exactly what the Bible says. Our fellowship together is “Jesus Come.” When we say that we BELONG inside of Jesus, we are saying that we BELONG inside of Church.

And thus the personal finds its place inside the social.

Just Like Jesus. Let’s sum all this up. We seem to be venturing far beyond where we have ever been, yet we have not left the gospel verses that are so familiar to us.

Communing with myself is communing with Father. Communing with Father is communing with myself. When I KNOW that, then I am human, just like Jesus. More than that, this Fellowship with Father that is me, makes me a person of infinite value and respect. Then, when I turn, as such an individual, and connect with you in the ongoing activities of daily life, our connection together mirrors and reflects that same value we are inside. And that is the revelation of Jesus Christ.