Hardwired for Relationships

So much of how we see ourselves and the world is tied up in whether or not we know our true identities as sons and daughters of the living God. I've had the privilege recently to be a part of a group of people who do know their identities looking to teach it and live it every day. We are created as image bearers of the Creator of Heaven and Earth and in His image we are good. God said in Genesis 1:31, "God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good." We, created by God, are GOOD! Rejoice! We are very good! And God also said in Genesis, "it is not good for man to be alone" and so he created woman. Voila! The first human to human relationship was created. God created community.

Christian community is something that we are hardwired to need and to want. To deny ourselves or have others deny that community is detrimental not only to the one but to the many. We are all part of one body with many gifts. "There are different kinds of gifts but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work." (1 Corinthians 12:5,6) And Scripture continues to tell us that:

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body...and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Now if the foot should say, 'Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,' it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, 'Because I am not the eye, I do not belong to the body,' it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If they were all one part, where would the odd be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I don't need you!' And the head cannot say to the feet, 'I don't need you!' On the contrary, those parts of the body that seems to be weaker are indispensable, and the part that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our preen table parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it."

I know that's a lot of Scripture to take in, but it's important to the topic at hand, we are all part of the body and are INDISPENSABLE to one another. This means that we must not only have a healthy understanding of the purpose of the body, but a healthy understanding on what it means to live as a body (It's important because our relationships are a reflection to non-Christians of the Lord!). The Church must have a balanced focus on both discipleship and evangelism.

(The real question we have to ask is, "Do we trust Him?)....