The fellowship of life not only brings light to us but also brings the practical cleansing of the blood to us. The blood's cleansing might be a mere doctrine and an objective fact to us. It may be there doctrinally as a fact, but it has nothing to do with us until we are really in the fellowship. First John 1:7 says that when we are in the light, we have fellowship and the blood cleanses us. If we are not in the fellowship, we may say that we apply the blood and we may believe the blood cleanses us, but actually the cleansing is not there. The blood actually cleanses us and is applied to us when we are really in the fellowship. This point is quite crucial.
Many Christians believe the blood cleanses them but this cleansing is not practically applied to them because they are not in the fellowship. The blood does not practically cleanse us outside of the fellowship. We must be in the fellowship. There is only one unique verse in the whole Bible which tells us how the cleansing can be practical. That verse is 1 John 1:7. It says that when we are in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.
The issue of the fellowship is that it keeps us abiding in the Lord (John 15:4-5). Actually, the abiding is the fellowship, and the fellowship is the abiding.
If we do not have the sense of life, we cannot realize the fellowship of life. The fellowship of life is known, sensed, realized, by the sense of life. How can we know that we have the fellowship of life, the flow of the divine life, within us? It is by the sense of life. We can illustrate this with our physical body. When our physical body has no illness, no problem, we do not have any feeling, but when we are ill, we are full of feeling. When we feel something in our stomach, this means we have stomach trouble. When we do not feel anything, this means our stomach is okay. It is the same with the fellowship of life.
Usually, when we have the fellowship of life, we do not feel that much, but when there is something wrong with the fellowship of life, the flowing of the divine life, we sense it. If we are walking in the light, in the fellowship of life, we do not have any special sensation. When we have any negative and abnormal sensation, that proves we have the fellowship of life, but it also proves that something is wrong with the fellowship of life. Thus, the fellowship of life is realized by the sense of life.