Yesterday, we considered the place of God’s word in living a holy life, but that is not the only tool we need to sustain a life of holiness. Apart from God’s word, another tool that God has provided for us to live holy is accountability to each other in the place of fellowship. If you are not part of a fellowship of brethren, it will be easy for you to fall into temptation. In fact, when the devil is after a Christian, one of the first things he does is to isolate the person from fellowshipping with the brethren. He will either cause a quarrel between the fellow and someone else in the fellowship or make the fellow offended by some of the activities of the fellowship. In my village, we used to cook with firewood, and we needed a lot of wood to make the fire big enough to cook a meal. Every log in the fire helps the other to get and remain hot. If while cooking, one log of wood was removed from the fire and placed in a separate place, you would soon discover that his log of wood would get cold and stop burning, while the others that stayed together would keep burning. This illustrates the evil strategy of the devil; please don’t fall for it by separating yourself from the fellowship of the brethren. If there is any quarrel between you and any member of your fellowship, go to your leaders and let them settle it, rather than you leaving the fellowship.

Another important thing you need to note is that if you are in a fellowship where everyone else is feeding from you and you are not being fed by anyone, you need to change your strategy from just feeding your fellowship members to teaching them how to get fed directly from God, so that they can also feed you from what God is teaching them. Even though the flame on a candle does not reduce with the number of candles it lights, a time may come when a strong wind blows out its fire and it will need another candle to light it up. If all the other candles in your fellowship have only little light, they will also not be able to withstand the wind, and hence they will be out of the fire too. However, if there is at least one person who has been feeding from you who now knows how to feed directly from God, you can get some fire from that fellow. This is why the Bible says in Proverbs 27:17:
“Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friends.”
No matter how strong plastic is, it can never sharpen iron; so raise every “plastic” person around you to become iron. Believe me honestly, a “Sunday-Sunday” Christian will find it difficult to live holy. Attending mid-week services are important to keep your fire burning. Small fellowship meetings also help you strengthen your spirit man against temptations. Meeting with a prayer partner or organising small Bible study group meetings regularly will also make you sharper spiritually.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.