Born Identity — Community

John 15 v 35 (MSG)

This is how everyone will recognise that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.

We have looked during this week at how understanding our identity in Christ shapes us and our behaviours. I want to finish the week by looking at how all those then shape our Christian community. That community may be the physical church you go to, the online church you attend, or a group of Christians you meet with regularly. How does the way we feel about ourselves, how we relate to others, how we give and how we share the gospel help us become a community which reflects Jesus and draws people in?

It might be easier to see how that works by contrasting it with a community that doesn’t have those characteristics. Some online groups/platforms/communities may be dominated by people who are deeply unhappy, who feel unloved and unseen, bitter even: they come from a place of pain, and relate to others through critical words only, with little generosity of thought or words so that what they create is a toxic space which makes for mutual harm. Most of us want to avoid such groups like the plague. We do not want that toxicity to characterise our Christian communities. 

But if we want to be different, to attract people because of the depth of our relationships and love for each other, then we have work to do on ourselves. We cannot create these communities in our own strength. We, as individuals, must continue to seek and claim our identity as children of our heavenly Father, loved accepted and forgiven and from there we can build these outgoing and generously loving communities. People are longing for such communities; the Bible tells us to build them NOW, the kingdom of heaven on earth - so we need to get going!

Prayer — Dear Lord, thank you for the gift of community where I can be known and seen. Give me insight into how I build and extend the kingdom-of-heaven community to others who don't yet belong.