a community of care

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 John 4:7-8

Christians experience and demonstrate true love. We know love only because of God’s love for us. We love on another because God has changed us, loved us, taught us to love, and by His Holy Spirit now enables us to truly love our brothers and sisters in Christ. The church is Christ’s community of care, where the love of God is born, known, shown, and grown in a world that is impossibly short of true love.

This love among followers of Jesus is unique. If you aren’t in it, you won’t know it. It is a bond together that is worth celebrating. It is one reason why I can NEVER imagine myself NOT in Christian community believing the gospel. It was the experience of real Christian love, when I was at my neediest, that led me to passionately follow Jesus and not look back. I learned and knew God’s love by the care of other Christians (imperfect though they were) in a local church. These were people who let me into their lives. It is why I want to care for others well. When I need direction, God uses His Word, His Holy Spirit, and His people in His church to care for, lead, instruct, and encourage me. The only way to know this love is to know forgiveness and love from God the Father through Jesus Christ.

Yes, I acknowledge that Christians, myself first among them, have our faults. And sometimes selfishness and false doctrine will take us off track and remove expressions of this love. But these are exceptions that prove the rule! And even in my rare experiences of this lack of love, there have always been a faithful group of authentic Christians calling me to continue on in Christ’s love. And their love, rooted in Christ’s love, never fails.

No matter what outsiders think of Christian faith, I KNOW this truth. And right now the church is as viciously hated as it has ever been. But the love of God among the people of God is undeniable for me. And I will love my perfect Jesus and His imperfect people with the love of my Father because God has loved me so well… so faithfully… so intensely through them.