‘How can one person alone keep warm?’ Ecclesiastes 4:11b HCSB
Do you prefer wearing mittens or gloves to keep your hands warm?
Mittens and gloves have the same purpose. They exist to keep your hands warm and protect you from the dangerous elements of cold, frosty weather. They come in all colors, styles, patterns, materials but they have one job – keep your hands warm and protected.
Mittens though warm, cozy and childlike can be awkward for accomplishing even simple tasks; filling a bird feeder, unlocking your home, or buckling a boot. Gloves are less awkward and certainly more tech-friendly. With the right gloves, you can still use your phone, touchscreen dashboard, or the ATM without uncovering and exposing your fingers or hand to dangerous chills.
If you have ever tried to put gloves on a pre-schooler you know mittens are simpler and gloves more complicated.
Many people like me believe what a study in Antarctica has proven to be true, that mittens do indeed keep your hands warmer.
Those fingers together under one covering generate a warmth that when isolated in a glove they can’t achieve individually.
To me, fellowship is like those mittens. When we come together as believers for worship, study, prayer, or Sunday dinners we generate a warmth that we can’t get we are alone, and apart from one another.
God designed us to be in fellowship. He designed us to encourage, strengthen, build up, warm up one another with our companionship, love, words, and deeds (Hebrews 3:13, Romans 1:11-12, Psalm 133:1-3, 1 Thessalonians 5:11) His Word is full of verses that declare the blessings of fellowship. Matthew 18:20 promises us His presence when two or three gathered. Does it get any better than His presence?
Yes, fellowship is like family and we can look at those who make those family gatherings difficult to go to or we can recognize that it is not about us. It’s about Him and what He desires and He desires us to be in fellowship and to encourage and strengthen our brothers and sisters.
Will you join with me in seeking and choosing to warm others?
Father God, please help us recognize we are here to be a blessing to You and to others. Please fill us up that we can overflow with Your goodness to others. It’s all about You, Jesus. Help us to keep it all about You. In Your Name we pray, amen.
Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. and let us be concerned about one another in order to promote love and good works, not staying away from our worship meetings, as some habitually do, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Hebrews 10:23-25 HCSB