Dessert

4:30 p.m. Today's project was to visit with my friend Charlotte at her 1-acre spread in Woodcrest. We get together every few months to exchange Christian fiction and catch up on one another's lives. Charlotte faithfully attends the Bible studies I teach each summer, much to my delight, because she was educated in a Christian college and her career has been in Christian education, so she is very well versed in scripture. (Very humbling, keeps me on my toes!) I taught 8 years in Christian schools, one of those years at Riverside Christian where she taught upper elementary while I was "set apart" in the kinder-nursery complex. Until we ran into one another at Calvary Chapel Moreno Valley women's Bible study, we hadn't been more than staff acquaintances.

Now we are both retired: involuntarily, in her case due to budget cuts; voluntarily, in my case, because of my husband's disabling Alzheimer's. She gave me a tour of her very large and beautiful mobile home--which you would never know from the street. It even has a stone fireplace! What fun seeing all of the drama, craft, and academic supplies she owns from the 14 years that she taught in the "Sonshine Christian School" that she founded in one of her outbuildings. I practically inhaled the open spacious feeling of the property, because I've always wished I could live on acreage--imagine the garden and animals our large family could have nurtured!

As we shared and talked about odd doctrines going about today, Christian education, our future plans, and about the helps ministry team I was asked to lead, I just felt so refreshed, like being treated to dessert, something special in my day!! Fellowship, koinonia, with Jesus in the center, as the foundation, is God's invention. Jesus said, in Mathew 18:20, "Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them." What a sweet and precious promise! How it elevates and enhances believers' conversations! And how the presence of the Holy Spirit checks our fleshly tendencies to speak hurtful and demeaning words to--or about-- one another!

Whenever we gather in Jesus' name, whether for Bible study, prayer, aid to the needy, or in a creative effort, it is a praise to Him and refreshment to our spirits. Fellowship is not a luxury, but an absolute must for a Christian who seeks to grow in his or her faith and desires to be of use in the Body of Christ! Listen to Hebrews 10:25 in the New Living Translation: "Let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of His return is drawing near." I further feel led to mention, now that we are in the 21st century, what Paul wrote in Romans 13:11: "This (loving one another, v. 10) is all the more urgent, for you know how late it is; time is running out. Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed."(NLT)

Please don't let fear, failure or doubt keep you from tasting the sweetness of fellowship for yourself! Draw strength and sustenance from others who desire to be Jesus' hands and feet to you in your troubled hour. (And who will gladly celebrate with you later in your deliverance from that trouble!)Enjoy the breaking of bread, the laughter and joy, as well as the tears of the redeemed. "O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man who trusts in Him." (Psalm 34:8)

And trust His plan for a taste of heaven--the delicious dessert called "fellowship"--which one day, will never end!