COMMunity

I suppose that I could say that I've been aware of the fact my whole life, but in reality I don't think I really understood how important it is to the walk of a Christian. What I'm talking about is the importance of being in community with other believers. Most of us would consider this to be church, but it doesn't even need to be a spiritually related meeting. If you are truly in love with Christ you will find yourself talking about Him even when your just hanging out with your friends.

Community is so important, we need other believers around us to encourage, strengthen, minister, be accountable for us, pray for each other, and worship with. Today I was just thinking about how hard it would be for me to go out into the world and make a difference alone. Yes I do have the Holy Spirit living inside of me, but having others there alongside you with the same mindset and goals is really profitable. When your around people who don't have a relationship with Christ for an extended period of time its easy to become very tired spiritually. We really need our brothers and sisters in Christ to encourage and be there when we need someone to talk to.

They encourage us to keep on following, pressing hard to serve, love, and follow Christ.
They strengthen our walk with Christ by offering advise, sharing verses, and through encouragement.
They minister to us as pastors, by sharing sermons, verses, and allowing God to talk through them.
They can hold us accountable to our commitments to Christ.
They pray for us when we are in need of prayer.
They can be the ones who play and sing the songs that we worship God with.

Christian love is a reminder and display of the love that Christ has for us. The same love that we experience and develop around our brothers and sisters is the love that we are to show and give to others who don't know Christ's love yet.

Community with other believers is so important because if we aren't able to love our brothers and sisters like Christ loved us how do we expect to show it to our neighbors? Our brothers and sisters uphold and encourage us, pray for us, bless us through acts of service, and minister to us. This is our very act as missionaries; We encourage others through words, pray for them, bless them by doing things for them, and minister to nonbelievers through scripture and teachings. The importance of community with believers is that it profoundly helps us to be in community and witness to nonbelievers.