\n\nTHE LOCAL CHURCH: A FELLOWSHIP OF BELIEVERS IN CHRIST
Luke sets before us an example of what every local church should be, by
showing us what that early church at Jerusalem was. \u201cThey continued
steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship, and breaking of
bread, and in prayers\u201d (Acts 2:42). That early assembly was a blessed
fellowship of believers in Christ. When the Bible talks about the
fellowship of believers, it is not talking about social gatherings or
church dinners; it is talking about a genuine oneness of heart among
God\u2019s people. Fellowship is unity of heart and purpose. It is good to
get together physically in one place. We all enjoy that. But it is
better to be united in heart. That is fellowship.
Our fellowship as a church is fourfold, We enjoy A DOCTRINAL FELLOWSHIP.
Like the early church, we continue steadfastly in the apostles\u2019
doctrine, the gospel of God\u2019s sovereign, saving grace in Christ. Nothing
is of greater importance to the local church than our doctrinal
foundation. What we do and what we are as a church is determined by what
we believe. If our fellowship with one another is not built upon the
gospel, then we have no real fellowship. The one thing that binds our
hearts together is the gospel of Christ. God has also given us A
FRATERNAL FELLOWSHIP. We are brothers and sisters in the family of God.
Few churches have been so blessed of God as we are. I do not think I am
being presumptuous, when I say that we are one. God has given us a sweet
fellowship of love, sympathy, understanding and care. The Lord
graciously grants us FELLOWSHIP WITH CHRIST. The Son of God himself
meets with us and makes himself known (Matt. 18:20). And in this place
we have been granted FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD. In our songs of praise and our
prayers together, we draw near to the living God, our Father, in true
fellowship! (I John 1:1-3). How we ought to cherish, carefully guard,
and eagerly promote this fellowship:
Don fortner.\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE LOCAL CHURCH: A FELLOWSHIP OF BELIEVERS IN CHRISTLuke sets before us an example of what every local church should be, by showing us what that early church at Jerusalem was. \u201cThey continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship, and breaking of bread, and in prayers\u201d (Acts 2:42). That early assembly was a blessed fellowship of believers in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-don-fortner","category-christ-and-his-church"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5350"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5351,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5350\/revisions\/5351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}