This past weekend was a landmark for me. After begging for several years for a friend of mine to come down and play some golf, he finally made it. I have had the pleasure of Rod and Mariann Wright's hospitality for a number of years and have been after them to come down and spend some time with my wife and me. Rod made it and brought Mike McCoy, who has been here several times before, with him.
Mike and Rod are the two men I am closest to from my graduating class. The odd thing is, we never spent much time together in high school but for some reason feel the need to do so now. Mike lives in Grove City, Ohio while Rod lives in Washington Court House, Ohio. Both are avid golfers with wives who also golf. My wife and I golf so the fit is fairly solid.
However, there are other things that fall into place as well. Rod and Mike have both gotten active in their churches and pay a lot of attention to their church calendars. Both men, as such, have conservative values which allows the three of us to converse at length about many topics. But what brought us together was the fact that we all graduated from Miami Trace High School in tiny Eber, Ohio, in 1968. All the other stuff keeps us together.
Christians within a congregation may not be lifelong friends, but they ought to be. Think about it. They come from similar backgrounds; they were all lost without hope in this world. They come from the same frame of experience; they gave their lives over to the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation and blessing. Is there any greater class to wich one could belong?
The beauty of that friendship is that it ties Christians not just to each other but also to the saints of old. The term for the friendship Christians share is "fellowship." "That which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ." 1 John 1:3 Truly a class in which to be included; and what a graduation!