Together Forever

THIS WEEK I want to praise God for one blessing in particular, the blessing of fellowship. All summer before this first year of college life, I prayed to have the right Christian group and friends surrounding me once I got here. Now, with one short week left before another summer, I see that God has done more than answer this prayer. He has put me in the midst of an amazing thing He is doing on my campus and surrounded me with the best friends I've ever had. There is something about being with other believers and talking to them that edifies your soul. When even just a couple of us get together, it's like a little shard of heaven, because heaven is about fellowship. A fellowship of believers together as a body, a body in fellowship with God forever. It's beautiful the way God gives us things to help each other when we least expect it. This isn't heaven, and things go wrong, and we often need other people who have Jesus living in them to bring us some light in the dark. If the Lord lives in us, then He unites us as His as shows Himself to us through each other. Just this week I've been blessed with a few one-on-one conversations with other believers that have really lifted me up. My discipler, Debbie, has become a great source of encouragement and guidance for me as I try to show Jesus to my classmates. And between me, my roommate Sarah, and our lovely friend Quinn, every one of us always seems to have something to say that another needs to hear right now. I see Christ in my friends all the time. Matthew 18:20 "For where two or three are gathered in My name, I am there in the midst of them." Even when a few of us meet up to get frozen yogurt, or to learn how to swing dance, or to invent unusual foods at a party - all of which happened to me in the last few days - I start to think about heaven, and how much fun that's going to be. I wonder if we'll look back on moments like this that we had on earth, moments when we wondered what it would be like to all be together forever once the battle is over, together in the presence of the God we all love. John 13:34-35 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." We are here to glorify God and to bless each other. We are here to rejoice together and mourn together. We are here to do the will of God together, whatever it may be, because we can't do this alone. Proverbs 18:1 "A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; he rages against all wise judgement." Yesterday I got such an amazing picture of how God moves through the body of Christ when I went to a CRU leadership meeting. Leaders of all levels and in all areas of the Christian organization came together. First we all shared the things God has done this year that we are thankful for. He has been moving in more ways on just our campus than I could say. He has saved people and given us the strength to overcome challenges in His name. I said that I am thankful that He has answered my prayer to have other Christians around me, and that through them He has shown me His love more than ever before. It was beautiful to be there, because I could see that I have a place in something big and glorious God is doing. He is leading CRU and using its members as He makes His dreams come true on our campus. He has people doing all different jobs, from prayer to using technology at events, all working together to bring glory to His name. I'm happy to be a part of it and to get to see His work. 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 "For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body - whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free - and have all been made to drink into one Spirit." Those moments are highlights for me, when we are all worshipping God together or praying together for one another. Things like that bless me so much, because I know that however God calls each of us to serve with our lives down here, we will all end up together forever with God. John 17:22-23 "And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me."