Living in community...

As another week passes by, I've been reflecting and reading about the importance and value of living in community. Although sometimes we might try to, in the end we cannot escape the invasiveness that comes with life in community. And that's how God intended it to be. Before enduring the agony of the cross, Jesus prayed to the Father:

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.

                                                                                                                                John 17:20-21

Jesus prayed that we might experience something of the intimate relationship he and the Father had known throughout eternity. That like Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we may be one. And how is this made possible? On the cross of Christ. On the cross, Jesus stood in the place of humanity and experienced the anger, separation and condemnation that we rightly deserve for our sin. He saved us not because we deserved to be saved, but because he loved us even when we were undeserving.

However, the wonderful news of the gospel is more than salvation from sin. God now invites all those who turn to him in repentance and faith to not only receive forgiveness of sins, but also to be united to the community of God. This is what it means to have eternal life says Jesus, '...that they (Christians) know you (the Father), the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent' (John 17:3).

In other words, the ultimate goal of the cross was not simply to get us to heaven. Jesus willingly said 'you deserve to experience God's anger, separation and condemnation for your sin, but because I love you, I will experience all this for you'. 'I have a perfect, joyful relationship with my Father' 'Here... you take what is mine and I'll take what is yours'. It all seems too good to be true, but this is what's on offer.

And now God calls his people to live in response to what he has done in Christ. To follow the example of Jesus. Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians (chapter 2:1-4): 

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.       

Jesus was 0% selfish in his ambition thinking only of others. Jesus was 100% humble in his attitude towards others. Jesus was 100% looking not to his own interest but to the interest of those he would later die for. I don't know about you but I am deeply convicted by these verses as I look over the last week and ask - what motivated me as I lived in community with others?

I'm thankful to God for the community of people he has placed alongside me here in Athens. It may be uncomfortable, it may be lengthy, but I know that I am in need of invasive surgery, surgery of the heart that comes from living in close community with others. How mind-blowing and scary it is to think that God will use me and those around me to create in me the change that he so desires.    

To conclude this blog post, I discovered on Thursday at the feeding ministry, how easy it can be to think that you are the only one with something to offer. How wrong I was. As I talked to one refugee, a man who had become a believer a few years ago, I realised that he had much to offer me. He spoke so passionately of how God was working in his heart, all I could do was sit and listen.