One Teacher, Many Brothers

God blesses those who realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is given to them. (NLT - Matthew 5: 3)

God did not call me to a man or to a denomination. He called me to Himself. He invited me to have relationship with Him.

What does this call, this invitation, involve? Most importantly, it involves loving Him and all that He is with everything I am and have. Secondly, it involves loving all that He loves.

My relationship with Him calls me into relationship with those He loves. Thus, I am called to community.

After studying Jesus' model of community with His disciples, I realized that there are some lessons that just cannot be learned at home with family. These lessons can only be learned among one's peers.

It is in a community of believers that I learn how to live the way Jesus taught us to live. It is there that I see the living, breathing grace and character of God. If I can live it there, I can live it anywhere.

Between Jesus' death and the Last Day, we have the opportunity, no the privilege, no the blessing to live in community with other believers. Sadly, we too often do not recognize this relationship with other believers as what it is - a gift. More often than not, we take these relationships for granted.

How blessed it is to sing together. How blessed it is to pray together. How blessed it is to support one another. How blessed it is to share a meal with each other, to laugh with each other, to remember the goodness and faithfulness of God.

We just don't know the true value of something until we no longer have it. Relationship with other believers is the grace of God upon us. It is one of the ways God strengthens and enables us to stand and be His people. My brother or sister's whisper of encouragement in my ear is nothing but the sweet breath of God.

Are you looking for the prophetic? They are those around you and me who speak the precious word of God. Are you looking for the healers? They are those sitting around you and me week after week with arms that hug and mouths that pray.

Are you looking for a miracle? What could be more of a miracle than God bringing together a diverse group of people whose lives have been radically changed by His love and who in turn embrace all who walk through their doors? That ragtag group of people is Christ's living, breathing body.

Today, I hear so many people saying,"God called me to . . ." Maybe He did; maybe He didn't. That's between them and Him. However, after forty something years of being a believer (some years I believed more than others), I cannot escape the thought that our highest call is to love Him with everything we are and have and to love what He loves.

What does God love? I know that He loves His son, and He loves the world because He sent His son so that we could be saved. He also loves what His son loves, and Jesus loves His bride, His church. Therefore, I am called to love God, to love all the people of the world, to love Jesus, and to love the church.

I am so thankful that Jesus has a body of believers here in this world. It is in this community that I learn and am equipped to go out and love the world to Jesus. It is in this community that I am healed physically and emotionally and strengthened and encouraged to be what He desires me to be. It is in this community that I feel the safety to try something new because failure is no longer a four-letter word. In this community the Beatitudes become alive and I learn how to show mercy and be humble, how to comfort and rejoice, how to long for justice and purity, how to be a peacemaker. In this place, I begin to know who I really am.

Thank you, God, for your son and for your holy spirit and for your love. Thank you so much for those you've placed around me who love me as you do, "just as I am," and who love me enough to speak into my life. Thank you for the gift of community and all the "gracelings" that come with it. May we never take God or His community of believers for granted.