Growing together

J.D. Hatfield reminds us that spiritual growth is not merely an individual process:

None of these commands to love and serve one another have any meaning apart from the primacy of a local body. You cannot exhort one another if there is no other. Of course it is also about others we meet who are believers from other places, and people outside who aren’t Christians. But the word must dwell in us, as a unit towards one another, before it may dwell in us outside that structure, at least as far as growth is concerned.

We grow best within the context of community, we grow as a group of individuals and we grow together as a unit, each individual is growing deeper and higher and together we also grow deeper and higher. The well ordered church, one that truly has a right view of God, as all in all, this is the place of blessing. The Vinedresser is tending His fruit and pruning His crop in His greenhouse, and if you are not there, you are not planted in the right soil.

Amen.