The Trust Protocol By Mac RichardSample

Day Seven: Spiritual Community

Scripture: Proverbs 27:5-6

After twenty years of pastoring, I’ve noticed a pattern: No one moves away from godly community and healthy connectedness and becomes more like Jesus. God in his creative genius meets each of us personally and individually right where we are and immediately invites us into the family of faith. There he begins working on us, growing, encouraging, challenging, and equipping us for good works.

While faith in Christ is personal, it is never individual or isolated. Spiritual growth always happens in the context of community. We need people around us who will tell us what we need to hear and not just what we want to hear. That’s the foundational, spiritual, God-given truth and mystery of the Trust Protocol. 

In Proverbs we read: “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses” (Proverbs 27:6). Wounds from a friend . . . Only a true friend confronts us, challenges us, and rebukes us. If we’re not willing to do that, then we’re only an acquaintance or a colleague. True friends hold up the mirror of Scripture for us to see where we’re off base and offer godly counsel on how to get back on track. 

Such a friend must also be someone who loves the Lord more than they love themselves or us, someone who realizes and values the authority of Scripture and has it hidden in their heart. And it must be someone who not only loves us but also likes us. They have to like us and want only God’s best for us in order for us to trust them.

Without that affinity, that kinship and friendship factor, we won’t fully trust them with our hearts, our motives, or our whys. And unless we trust them with everything, there will be parts of our lives hidden from the light of godly counsel and biblical truth.

In his amazing grace and perfect wisdom, God meets our desperate need for accountability and counsel within the context of community and connectedness with other people. Community is one of the primary mirrors God uses to help us keep our motives in check—and one of the greatest joys we can know as followers of Christ.

What has been your experience of spiritual community? When have the “wounds from a friend” made a positive difference in your life?