Day 24, March 20, 2007
Nehemiah 7:66-73
Though it may sound redundant, it’s a truth that bears repeating because God repeats it so often: The work of God is done in community, not individually. Nehemiah was, above everything else that he was, a community builder. His prayer inspired vision to re-establish the testimony of the Lord and was the catalyst for drawing people together in a great work. And this is always where God is taking us. Even if we began our journey of faith by accepting Christ as our personal savior, we can’t read the grand story that God is writing without seeing his desire for a testimony that is collective.
Ours is a consumer age, where goods and services are purchased as a means of meeting needs. If we’re not careful, the church can quickly be reduced to nothing more than a spiritual store, where our needs are met in exchange for our offering money. But such a posture is, as we’ve already seen many times, a vast misrepresentation of the heart of God and the life to which He’s called us. We must resist this, and we will be able to resist it to the extent that we get involved in serving and connecting with others.
Pray for Bethany, that God would shape us, increasingly, to be a community characterized by interdependency, service, and authentic relationships, for this is both the context and goal of the story God is writing.
posted by Richard Dahlstrom @ 4:57 AM
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