Establishing a good and faithful servant’s relationship with one another and God is an important cornerstone in creating a tight-knit Christian community.
Let us talk about good and faithful servants’ relationships. What are these, and why are they important?
In these trying times and always, I think it is best to look back to Galatians 5:13-14:
13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Galatians 5:13-14
The pursuit of individual gain and satisfaction, I believe, is the main contributor to many of the ills of today, from war and famine to disease and poverty. These evil things are because most of us do not see our neighbors as part of a great, overarching family anymore. We huddle in our small groups and refuse to reach out to the other side. Even in a small Christian community, seemingly irreversible rifts can occur.
So what are we talking about here?
Although faith is all about an individual’s relationship with God and no one else, being a Christian is not merely about yourself. If it was, we should all be hermits waiting inside our own little caves away from each other, worshipping God by ourselves and waiting until we pass away or until Judgment Day comes.
No, being a Christian is more than being pious; it is getting to be part of a larger community of believers and working hard to create the Kingdom of God here on this Earth.
Although our main duty is to serve God above all else, beneath that is to serve our fellows. It is only when the Word of God is spoken in all the corners of the world that true salvation for the whole of humanity can come—and that can only happen if all of us stick together and learn to go forward as a single community.
Take the greatest problems we as a society are facing now: poverty, war, plague, inequality, and disbelief. These are all issues that stem from a decline in community.
Poverty is because a community has seen it fit to discard a member of their own, leaving them to fend for themselves without the shelter of society. This goes against the teachings of Christ himself, who walked alongside the poor and spoke with them. Who are we to call ourselves Christians when we cannot do as Christ did?
As with poverty, plague is the result of a community that discards members of its own, instead wishing only to care for themselves and not others. If we were truly a unified community, we would see to it that everyone in our flock would have access to food and water, and shelter and ask not for anything in return. But because we have segregated ourselves from each other, we have forgotten how to care for each other and even shun those we think are sick. Did Christ not go amongst the sick and heal them? Why do we distance ourselves from them, then?
Then, there is inequality and what comes with it, famine. A community that is in disarray is one where one individual has more wealth than he could ever spend in multiple lifetimes, and another subsists in the spoils of the rest. Read through every page of scripture and tell me, is that a community that confesses to following the teachings of Christ? It is a travesty that in a world of abundance, there are those who are lacking and cannot feed themselves. It is disgusting, to say the least. If Christ could feed and clothe the impoverished during His earthly ministry, there is no reason that we cannot.
And onward to war—why does war occur? It is because of irreconcilable conflict, which is only fomented when communities no longer feel like communication and reconciliation are options. This is not reflective of the Christian heart of open-mindedness and tolerance. As Christians, peace should always be the goal when it comes to conflict. What’s more, entering into conflict indicates an unwillingness for patient understanding and an unhealthy attachment to the worldly. Remember, there is life everlasting behind the pearly gates, and to entrench ourselves in this temporal world through war only sullies the soul. How can we serve God when we cannot serve each other?
Only when we accept each other into the community of God can we better enact the Word of Christ and prepare for the Second Coming.
The Damsel’s Files 