Thursday Thoughts-June 11-18-COMMUNITY

This week I want to examine that second element that encompass our Core Values, Community. Community is one of those themes that runs all throughout the Scriptures, beginning with the creation of man and women, and extending into Israel and the First Century church.  It seems that God has place a massive emphasis on men and women growing together and doing life together.  This is a concept and idea that is being challenged in our very individualistic society, my problems are mine to deal with, my life is my life, and in this shift we have learned to rely more on ourselves and our ideas.  While God did create each of us different, with different personalities, and preferences, He did not create us to let those things terminate on us alone, nor did He intend for us to bear those burdens alone.  So often we take our God given individuality and turn it into pride, leading most of us to think that our problems are something that we need to deal with.  This has left our society in shambles, marriages crumbling, because we are too proud to ask for help until it's to late, our children rebelling, because we have lost sight of what is central, depression on the rise.  This was not God's intention from the beginning, for people to live secluded lives apart from any meaning contact, rather He intended a group of people that shared a mutual love and servant's heart for each other.

So that is the fight we face in a world that tell us it's all about you, we must fight to defend what the Bible stands for, a people unified under one cause, seeking to walk out one purpose.  Philippians 2:1-11-lays out the mindset that you and I are to be striving for, the same mind that our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus had.  

Let me ask you a question, where do you turn when the bottom drops out of your life?  Or when you face an issue that is embarrassing, or even scandalous?   

This week I want you to ponder this idea, what would a church be like if it operated in unity and selfless humility, Phil. 2:1-11.  Let us not simply think or dream about it, let's become such a place!!!!!

LOVE GOD LOVE PEOPLE 

Brandon