There are few terms in such common use and so little understood as "fellowship." In
numberless cases, it merely indicates the fact of a nominal membership in some
religious denomination_a fact which furnishes no guarantee of living communion with
Christ, or personal devotedness to His cause. If all who are nominally "in fellowship"
were acquitting themselves thoroughly as men of God, what a very different condition
of things we should be privileged to witness!

But what is fellowship? It is, in its very highest expression, having one common object
with God, and taking part in the same portion; and that object, that portion, is Christ
_Christ known and enjoyed through the Holy Spirit. This is fellowship with God.
What a privilege! To be allowed to have a common object and portion with God
Himself! To delight in the One in whom He delights! There can be nothing more
precious than this. Not even in heaven itself shall we reach a higher level than this.

It is only as we walk in the light, that we can have fellowship one with another. We
read, "If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with
another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7).
We can only have fellowship one with another as we walk in the immediate presence of
God. There may be a vast amount of mere sociability without one particle of divine
fellowship. A great deal of what passes for Christian fellowship is nothing more than
the merest religious gossip. True Christian fellowship can only be enjoyed in the light.
It is when we are individually walking with God, in the power of personal communion,
that we really have fellowship one with another; and this fellowship consists in real
heart enjoyment of Christ as our one object, our common portion. It is not heartless
traffic in certain favorite doctrines which we receive to hold in common. It is not
merely sympathy with those who feel as we do about some favorite theory or dogma. It
is something quite different from all this. It is delighting in Christ, in common with all
those who are walking in the light. It is attachment to Him, to His Person, His Name,
His Word, His cause, His people. It is joint consecration of heart and soul to that
blessed One who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and brought
us into the light of God’s presence, there to walk with Him and with one another. This,
and nothing less, is Christian fellowship; and where this is really understood, it will
lead us to pause and consider what we say when we declare, in any given case, "such
an one is in fellowship."

(From "The Man of God" in Miscellaneous Writings, Volume 3.)