Community Spirit

Sometimes we are so intent on keeping our heads down and our hands to the plow that we don’t even recognize our need for other women. In days of old, people were born into and lived in their communities their whole lives. They knew their neighbors, and when they hung the laundry out to dry, they chatted over the fence with them. When they needed to borrow a cup of sugar, they went next door to that same friend they had known for years. Parents often lived in the same house as their adult children, and aunts and uncles and cousins would live nearby too.

Now, we live apart. Many of us attend churches of thousands, which are not in our neighborhoods. We don’t usually know our neighbors, and we often have no values or background in common with those neighbors, anyway. So, we become used to fending for ourselves, until eventually we find ourselves exhausted, wanting to give up, and wondering where God has gone.

God’s design was always for us to live in community. The family was to be a large group living together, loving each other, and sharing life and traditions together. There would be lots of children with similar values and close relationships, so moms could actually have a few minutes alone while the children played and ran and had wholesome fun.

No wonder Satan works so hard at creating isolation among us—because when we are alone in our homes, we naturally compromise our ideals, become discouraged, and listen to his voice of discouragement.

His Promises

If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad.

All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it.

But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose.