Fellowship Joy

One crucial part of life we are all missing during this time of fearmongering, lies, and shutdowns is fellowship. They shut down our businesses and churches, they isolate our loved ones in hospitals and nursing homes like a prison, and they made human interaction illegal. This needs to stop, folks, and it needs to stop now. The joyful fellowship I had this morning helped me see just how much I miss and need fellowship, and I mean good old fashioned in person face to face human interaction with no masks and no social distancing. 15 days to slow the spread turned into almost 7 months now. This is no longer about a virus, if it ever really was; this is about power and control. People need each other and we desperately need that fellowship joy!

This morning was such a surprising and refreshing encouragement that I knew right away that I had to write about it. Most of you know that we moved here to Florida back in July. Last Saturday, Governor DeSantis issued a new order that opened up the entire state and banned mandatory masks. We are living free in Florida, and no city, county, business, or school district can force us or our kids to wear a mask anymore! Praise God!

I even wrote the superintendent of our school district letting him know that I trust he and the school board will obey the law and no longer require masks. Our kids have been in school for a few weeks now. They are allowed mask breaks and other times where they don’t have to wear them, but they have still been required. Now that masks are optional in Florida, the schools must obey the law. The superintendent actually wrote me back and he let me know they will be reviewing the order and how to proceed this week. They are getting a lot of flak from parents here. People are fed up and we have a Governor who backs us up!

If people still want to wear a mask and they want their kids to wear a mask, go ahead. Your fear doesn’t limit my freedom, my family isn’t wearing one, and Governor DeSantis said you can’t force us to. Praise God for a Governor who protects and upholds our Constitutional rights and civil liberties! If you want to be forced to wear a mask, go live in Colorado where I came from. Polis is happily forcing everyone to mask up. You could also go live in NYC or California. Lunatic Governors Cuomo and Newsom love forcing masks on their people and violating their liberty with tyranny.

So, about that joyful fellowship this morning. A couple weeks ago, the air conditioning in our oldest car quit working right. Sometimes it would blow out cold air and sometimes it was warm air. It was miserable a few times picking up our son from school as I sat in car line for over an hour with no A/C. It happened again yesterday and that was the last straw for me, so I made an appointment with the auto repair shop just a few houses down from us on our street. It is such a blessing to have a shop so close! I just walked home after dropping it off.

When I walked into the shop, I was greeted by smiling faces instead of masks, and we said good morning to each other. We started to talk about my car, but then we all started talking about the chilly weather today. It was about 68 degrees this morning and it felt great! Nice cool crisp air and pretty much no humidity. This is the perfect weather Floridians have been telling us about all summer. It actually feels a lot like Colorado today, and I can definitely get use to this! Finally was able to drive with my windows down this morning too, which felt great!

As we talked about the weather, I told them I was from Colorado and I loved the cooler air. I was talking with the owner, the woman at the front desk, and a mechanic. The owner asked me why we moved to Florida, so of course I told him about the liberals and high taxes in Colorado and how we wanted to live in a conservative state with a strong conservative Governor. After that, we talked about the debate last night, Covid, masks, schools, supporting Trump, and my favorite, Jesus. We ended up laughing and talking for almost an hour and the joy of the Holy Spirit was flowing!

They are all Christians and the owner even has a prayer room! How cool is that?! I’ve never seen an auto shop with a prayer room, but I have now! It was so much fun talking with all of them that I didn’t want to leave. It was like we were having church and it was beautiful! It is awesome being surrounded by people who love Jesus, family, and America!

It was so healing and refreshing to share fellowship with them. The owner even shook my hand! It is so cool to see people not living in fear! I reached out and shook his hand with great joy! It was awesome talking with fellow brothers and sisters who speak the truth about faith and politics! All of us need the comfort and encouragement of fellowship. God’s Word is clear, it is not good for man to be alone. We need to gather together to talk and pray and sing and encourage each other! We all need that fellowship joy!

“Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Ephesians 5:19-20

A few days ago, there was a Christian brother here in America who was arrested because he was singing at church without a mask. Yes, arrested! I never thought I would see the day where a Christian was arrested for singing at church in America! This isn’t about Covid. This is tyranny and persecution! Do we have a Constitution or not?! I know we will experience persecution as Christians, but even the Apostle Paul stood up for his rights as a Roman citizen (see Acts 22:22-29). They are using fear as a weapon to take our freedom and overthrow our Republic, and we all better stand up for each other before our freedom and rights are gone forever!

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

Galatians 5:22-23

No one in America should ever be arrested for singing at church! That is NOT America! How we are living down here in Florida is America. The American dream is alive and well down here! We are working, our kids are in school, and we are free! Our families are safer too because we DEFEND the police and respect law and order. You won’t see any of that liberal socialist violence down here! Antifa doesn’t want to tangle with our law enforcement officers, that’s for sure!

That burst of joy I received from having fellowship with my two brothers and sister in Christ this morning was glorious! We need to gather together to talk and sing and hug and shake hands and pray and worship together! We need human touch and interaction! No one in this country has the authority to violate your civil liberties or rights. We have the First Amendment and all other rights protected by our Constitution for a reason! No one has the authority to shut down your faith, your church, or your fellowship!

Take off that mask full of lies and fear! Talk to each other face to face and worship God together! There is nothing like the Holy Spirit fire among believers! That conversation this morning fired me up in the Spirit and the joy from that fellowship is still flowing! Love each other, be strong and courageous, and go get yourself some of that fellowship joy!

Grace and peace to you all!

“May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

2 Corinthians 13:14