p. 6 | Christian Fellowship by L. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jan 4, 1906

Christian Fellowship

By L. A. S.

It is the sharing of a common peril or a common sorrow, a common share in some trying experience, that creates between two persons a bond of fellowship. So if we would have fellowship with Christ, we must be partakers of that which he experienced.

For this reason we may count it all joy when we fall into divers temptations, for such was the lot of Christ. He was tempted in all points of human weakness, and with this temptation came suffering. His greatest suffering was when

in Gethsemane he endured the temptation to renounce his mission to save the human family. If we have fellowship with Christ, it must be “the fellowship of his sufferings.” But fellowship with him makes the suffering well worth enduring, and even something to be greatly desired. It brings suffering to resist temptation, but it also brings oneness with divinity.

The Captain of our salvation was made perfect through suffering. “In that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted.” Tribulation was the inevitable lot of all Adam’s family who would renounce the carnal nature and enter the kingdom of God; and Christ, to identify himself with the human family, took upon himself human weaknesses, and was subject to temptations. He identified himself with humanity, that the sons of Adam might become identified with him, and become the sons of God. But without chastisement this relationship with God is not possible. Heb. 12:7-11.

“If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.” The pathway is the pathway of temptation and suffering, but fellowship with Christ is worth much more than the price at which it is purchased.

L. A. S.