Dear Ray,
There is something extraordinary about the fellowship the apostles shared. It was simple and entirely centered upon Christ, yet so different from much of what we have come to know as Christianity.
They had no religious system to preserve, no organization to maintain, and no ministry that people were required to follow. What they had was Christ Himself. They were living in Him, and He was living in them.
That was their fellowship. It was Zoe.
Somewhere along the way, we began replacing that living fellowship with the things surrounding it. We kept the teachings, developed the practices, established ministries, and built a religious world around something that was never meant to become a system. We can spend our entire Christian lives within that world without knowing the fellowship the apostles experienced.
What Were the Apostles Sharing?
Ray, consider what John said. Their fellowship was with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. He wanted others to share in that same fellowship.
He was not inviting people to join his organization. He was speaking about a life he had received and was living. The apostles had walked with Jesus and heard Him speak. Then the Christ who had been with them became the Christ who lived within them. They were no longer merely following someone. They were living in Him.
We attend meetings, pray, study the Bible, share meals, and call it fellowship. But we can do all of those things without abiding in Christ. We can agree about every doctrine and still be living entirely from ourselves.
Fellowship is not something we create by gathering. If you abide in Him and I abide in Him, we share the same life. Our fellowship does not depend upon belonging to the same ministry or agreeing about every spiritual matter. It depends upon Christ. No one owns that fellowship.
We Have Turned Abiding Into a Method
Jesus said, ‘Abide in Me.’ What could be simpler? Yet we have developed methods, trainings, conferences, and ministries to explain how to enter a life already given to us.
But abiding is not a method. It is remaining in the One who has become our life. The branch does not study how to produce fruit. It remains in the vine. The life of the vine becomes its living.
We measure spiritual progress by how much we understand, how much we serve, and how useful we become. What if we have been measuring the wrong thing? What if the question is whether we are remaining in Christ? God does not intend merely to make accomplished religious people. He intends His life to become our life.
We Can Do Christianity Without Abiding
Ray, almost everything we call Christianity can be accomplished without abiding in Christ. We can build churches, preach sermons, conduct meetings, publish books, organize conferences, and attract thousands. Natural human ability can accomplish all of it.
A gifted speaker can move an audience. A talented organizer can build a ministry. A knowledgeable teacher can explain the Bible beautifully. But none of these things proves Zoe is being lived.
We have become impressed with what people accomplish for God without asking whether God is the source. We have substituted teaching for experience, meetings for fellowship, ministry for abiding, and gifted men for the living Head.
We can preserve the language of Zoe for generations while living from our natural selves. The words remain, and the reality disappears.
The Gifted Must Lose Their Place
I am increasingly concerned about the place we give gifted people among the believers. The five-talented ones can become the greatest obstacle to the life they were meant to serve.
People depend upon the gifted brother for understanding, direction, and spiritual supply. They wait for him to speak. They accept his interpretation. Slowly the other members become an audience. Is that the Body of Christ? I do not believe it is.
The five-talented brother must die to his giftedness. Not lose the gift, but lose the need to exercise it, the importance attached to it, and the place it gives him. He must be willing to be silent and to become nothing. He must be willing for Christ to be expressed through the least impressive person in the room, without needing to correct or approve it.
The fellowship of the apostles was not meant to become the fellowship of a few remarkable men. It is the fellowship of divine life, and that life belongs to every member.
Where Are We Supposed to Remain?
Where has the Lord told us to remain? In a ministry? In an organization? In the teachings of a particular man? No. He said to abide in Him.
Yet we have made loyalty to religious arrangements almost sacred. People remain because of years invested, friendships, fear of misunderstanding, or because they cannot imagine knowing Christ apart from the ministry that introduced them to Him.
But Ray, the ministry is not Christ. The teaching is not Christ. The organization is not Christ. Even wonderful experiences from earlier generations are not Christ Himself.
Why remain where a religious system teaches dependence upon its leaders rather than upon the indwelling Lord? Why should members of His Body remain spectators while a few gifted people carry on the work?
There comes a time when we must leave. Not from anger, not because we have a better method, and not to start another movement. We leave because we want Christ. Nothing else can take His place.
No One Owns the Fellowship
It is remarkable how easily a Christian group comes to believe it possesses the genuine fellowship. It may have wonderful teachings, a remarkable history, and real help from gifted brothers. Then the ministry becomes the measure of everything.
Agreement with its teaching becomes the test of faithfulness. Loyalty to its workers becomes the measure of oneness. Its practices become the definition of church life.
Ray, no one owns Zoe. No one can administer the life of Christ or decide who may participate in the fellowship of the Father and the Son.
We may have different backgrounds, different understanding, and different words. But if we abide in Christ, we share the same life. I do not need to agree with every teaching of a ministry to remain in Christ. Neither do you. Neither does anyone else.
The Mystery Is Christ Living in Us
The mystery hidden through the ages has been revealed: Christ in us, the hope of glory.
God did not merely intend to save people from judgment or establish a religion that teaches about Him. He intended to enter humanity. His life would become our life, His nature would be expressed through us, and Christ would gain a corporate expression among His people.
The apostles received Christ as their life. Their fellowship was the sharing of that life. The ekklesia was meant to express that same life through all its members. Not a religious institution, not a gathering around gifted speakers, not a ministry preserving earlier generations’ understanding. A living people, abiding in Christ, expressing Zoe.
I believe this is what God has always wanted, and we have settled for something far less.
We Must Cross the River
Ray, I keep coming back to crossing the river. On one side are our religious identities, ministries, traditions, methods, dependence upon gifted people, need to be right, and desire to belong to something important. On the other side is Christ.
Not another ministry. Not another church movement. Not another set of teachings about how everything should be done. Christ Himself.
But we can leave an organization and carry its whole spirit within us. We can reject leaders while wanting to lead ourselves. We can condemn methods while inventing new ones. We can leave one movement and gather people around our reasons for leaving. Then we have accomplished nothing.
The crossing must happen inwardly. Our natural life must be brought to the cross. Our need for importance, our dependence upon religious arrangements, even our pride in seeing what others have not seen must die.
If no one recognizes what we have seen, Christ must be enough. If no ministry agrees with us, Christ must be enough. If we never gather a following or become important, Christ must be enough. The destination was never a better church. It is Christ Himself.
What Remains?
What if everything we depend upon in Christianity were taken away? No buildings, ministries, conferences, gifted speakers directing meetings, religious programs, or organizations telling us where we belong.
Would we still know Christ? Would we still abide in Him? Would we still have fellowship?
The apostles had something that did not depend upon any of these things. They had Christ. He was their life. And because they shared that life, they shared a fellowship no organization could create.
That is what I long for. Not a reconstruction of first-century meetings, but the life they knew. The Christ who lived within them. The fellowship that came from remaining in Him. That life is available to us today.
Let Us Remain in Him
Ray, we do not need another Christian movement, another generation of gifted men explaining how the church should function, or another method for producing spiritual people. We need to return to the One who is already our life.
The fellowship of the apostles was the living fellowship of the Father and the Son, shared among those who received Christ. That is where we belong. Not in the things surrounding Him, not in organizations claiming to represent Him, not in our own ideas of how His church should function. In Him.
We have remained too long in places where we were never meant to remain. We have given loyalty to ministries, attention to gifted men, and our lives to preserving things that cannot give life.
Let the gifted lose their importance. Let religious systems come to an end. Let methods and traditions fall away. Let everything that has taken the place of Christ be left behind.
And let us remain in Him.
That is the fellowship of the apostles. That is Zoe. And Ray, I believe that is where the Lord has been calling us all along.
With affection,
Brent
