Daily Journal: 10 May

Building Community

Community is at the heart of God’s nature. Relationships that are united and embrace togetherness reflect His inclusiveness to all people. Kind acts of service to others in need portray His heart. Reaching out to those on the fringe, the lonely, the broken and the destitute testifies to His presence in our lives.

Building community is one of the greatest, most practical things we can do in life. This is every person’s purpose. In doing so we show our worship to God. In loving others we glorify Him and we ourselves are enriched.

Hebrews 10:24-25 (NLT)

Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.

Meet together. Community can’t be done alone. The word community holds the ethos of its own meaning – common unity. Even the act of meeting together encourages one another.

Galatians 6:2 (TLB)

Share each other’s troubles and problems, and so obey our Lord’s command.

Sharing means we need to establish trust and responsibility to each other. To walk alongside of and understand each other rather than create distance between each other.

What is the Lord’s command?

Matthew 22:36-40 (NLT)

“Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”

Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

In loving God first we naturally extend ourselves to others, even those we may not normally meet together with or agree with about lesser things. These things should not create a division. The love of God can bridge our pettiness when we truly follow Him. We wouldn’t see people shift their body away from another or walk the other way when they see someone coming. When we turn towards, walk with, and face one another in peace we show real understanding of the endurance of Christ on the cross. That’s when we have the love of God in our hearts and really set our minds towards building community.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 (TLB)

Two can accomplish more than twice as much as one, for the results can be much better. If one falls, the other pulls him up; but if a man falls when he is alone, he’s in trouble.

I pray we soften our hearts towards each other and understand the real meaning of community. I pray we grasp the love of Christ and extend that love to each other even in the smallest of ways.