Being Eager to Meet Again

It is to be hoped that we are not getting too used to not meeting on the Lord's Day. The truth is that we ought to be missing meeting together. Someone writing recently, said that the idea of a 'virtual church' is an illusion. Meeting together is essential for the spiritual health of the believer.

Paul, when we find him in Acts 28:11-15, had been deprived of fellowship with believers, apart from Luke and a few others, for a long time. It might now be in the region of three years since Paul had had regular fellowship with Christians beyond perhaps a handful of people.

We learn that Paul thanked God when he first met the believers from Rome, because he believed that God had sent them to greet him. He had been longing to see them, as we learn in Romans 1:11, but been prevented. That ambition had now been fulfilled but perhaps not in the circumstances that Paul had imagined they would be. However it had come about, Paul sees the hand of God in it all.

That is good news for sinners who are burdened with their sin. There is forgiveness in Christ, and they should take courage. It is the same thing the Lord tells the disciples in Matthew 24:27 when He comes to them walking on the water and they are afraid. We may be afraid and have difficulties and troubles. In John 16:33, the Lord tells us to be of good cheer because He has overcome the world. That is an encouragement to us all.

Christian fellowship is strengthening to us. It is part of the plan of God to cheer us and encourage us. We too should be emboldened by Christian fellowship, as Paul himself was. So we look forward to meeting together again when we can strengthen each other in this way.