Let those who love your salvation say evermore, “God is great!”
✙ Psalm 70:4
✙
When I'm by myself, I can (and do!) read my Bible. I pray. I even sing. And when I do all these things, I often proclaim the greatness of God. I hear myself doing it. And God, I'm sure hears me, too. And so I should glorify God when I'm alone. But my praise is magnified when I glorify God in the church. Community is God's gift to us. My praise, therefore, is not what it can be if I express it alone. But community is not what it should be if all I want out of it is the warm (or excited) feeling I get when together we express our praise. Community is also about struggle and truth and reflection. And if I cannot participate in the struggle or hear and reflect on the truth uncovered in community, then my faith is immature.
One person who truly understood the community of faith was the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In his book Life Together, he said,
Let the who cannot be alone beware of community. Let the one who is not in community beware of being alone. Each by itself has profound perils and pitfalls. One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and the one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation and despair.
✙
May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
Losung Losungen عیسی خداوند است Tageslosung Moravian Daily Texts Watchword عیسی مسیح Watchwords Lehrtext المسيح عيسى Lehrtexte يَسُوعُ رَبٌّ Teaching Text مسیحیت
Text selection ©2021 Evangelische Brüder-Unität. All scripture quotations from the New Revised Standard Version, unless otherwise noted.
May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
✙ Romans 15:5-6
✙
Prayer after thinking about today's devotion:
✙
Thank you, O God, for my community of faith. May voice strengthen our song of praise. And may the voice of my community strengthen me when I am alone.
✙ After your own thanksgivings & petitions, close with the Lord's Prayer.
Losung Losungen عیسی خداوند است Tageslosung Moravian Daily Texts Watchword عیسی مسیح Watchwords Lehrtext المسيح عيسى Lehrtexte يَسُوعُ رَبٌّ Teaching Text مسیحیت
Text selection ©2021 Evangelische Brüder-Unität. All scripture quotations from the New Revised Standard Version, unless otherwise noted.
