While the basis of fellowship is Salvation, the nature of that fellowship is sharing. In Acts 2:42, it tells us that after the church was born, the members were continually devoting themselves to the apostle’s teaching and to fellowship. Then in verse 44 we are told that all who believed were together, not in a superficial way but in a profound way. They began selling their property and possessions and sharing with them all as any one might have need. It doesn’t mean that they liquidated everything and then spread it out equally, it was simply sharing to the degree that if someone else had a need, they would sell a possession in order to get what they needed to get to provide for that need. Aristides , a pagan, wrote about Christians, “When there is among them a man that is poor and needy, and if they have not an abundance of necessities, they fast two or three days, that they may supply the needy with the necessary food.” Fellowship is a continuous action based on a common life. This testimony was powerful in the lives of the communities the believers dwelt. This was not a social gospel, where they dealt lived equally with their distribution of wealth, it was the recognition of true needs within the body, and the voluntary and willful determination of those within the fellowship to meet those mutually recognized needs. We often think of meeting those needs with money, but the reality is that one of the greatest ways we meet the needs of others, is by just coming along side of them and giving them the most precious gift we have – time. Patiently, generously, and graciously, giving to those who do not have, something they need more than anything else, a person who will listen and respond compassionately in their moment of true need. Take some time this week and look toward coming along side of those who have true needs, and you will enjoy the bond that forms between you and the sense of satisfaction that is derived from helping others.