CommunitySample

Day 3: Community Wisdom

Have you ever known someone who always had “a word from the Lord” to share? Have you ever had someone like this share a word with you, instructing you to do something specific? Then you thought to yourself, “I wish the Lord would have let me in on this, because I haven’t heard him say anything about it.”

When Jesus was about to leave the earth, He comforted His disciples, telling them He was sending them a Counselor, the Spirit of Truth, to guide them and teach them all things. (John 16) He was going to send ONE Spirit to all believers. We know God’s Spirit would not say one thing to one believer and then, say something contradictory to another believer. His Spirit is just like Jesus, the same yesterday, today and forever. John warns us in 1 John 4:1 NIV:

“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

We test the things we are hearing through Scripture, but we also have Community to help fulfill this purpose. When one believer shares a word, they believe to be from God, other believers will confirm it, or they will deny it. This helps us to recognize the voice of God in our lives versus the voice of the deceiver.

And we also know The Spirit gives us spiritual gifts that we are to use in Community.

“It was He Who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers…”

WHY?

“To prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” Ephesians 4:11-13 NIV

It is clear that God intended us to experience our Christian faith in Community. We need each other. Paul explains this in detail in 1 Corinthians 12, especially in verses 12-31, where he teaches that we are all body parts of ONE BODY. Without all the other body parts, we will be incomplete in our faith and our understanding of God’s will.

I love an analogy that one of my mentors uses when he says, “There is a Big Parade going on…one Parade…but we all have a different view of the parade. When we all come together and share our individual views, the full Parade comes into view.” We need the wisdom which comes from Christian community. When we get isolated and focused only on our own viewpoint, we get in trouble.