God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
We don’t come to church, to be a church. We come to Christ, and then we are built up as a church. If we come to church just to be with one another, one another is all we’ll get. And it isn’t enough. Inevitably, our hearts will grow empty, and then angry. If we put community first, we will destroy community. But if we come to Christ first and submit ourselves to Him and draw life from Him, community gets traction.
It is inconceivable to think that the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead would come into our lives and then do nothing. Where the Spirit is at work, our love and its "fruits of righteousness" abound "more and more" as we mature in our dependence upon Christ (Phil. 1:9-11).
