The Prerequisite to Biblical Community

We have heard testimonies over the past few weeks of how God is working within the church planting team. These testimonies and praise reports bring joy to our hearts and encourage us deeply. During this preparation stage, God is equipping our team to be effective. Erica, Abigail, and I, are waiting in anticipation to be a part of what God has started.

On another note, I currently am working as an Academic Advisor for Liberty's University's Distance Learning Program. As an advisor, we are held responsible for placing student's in to the correct classes according to their specific program. For example, before Religion student's can take upper level Bible classes, they must take the lower level prerequisites in order to prepare for the upper level classes. Without the fundamental knowledge gleaned from lower level prerequisite classes, students are not able to successfully complete upper level courses. That just makes sense.

As a team, I long for us to live in biblical community. However, in order for us to experience the Biblical community that God desires for us to experience, we must individually meet the prerequisite. So you ask: What is the prerequisite? 1 John 1:7 says "If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another." Before we can live in harmony with each other, love each other, spur one another on toward love and good deeds(Hebrews 10:24), consider each other better than ourself (Philippians 2:3), we must individually"walk in the light". In other words, we must be right vertically before we are right horizontally. If I am living in sin and not "walking in the light", it affects the entire team's unity. Our personal relationship with Jesus must be pure and growing in order for our team to experience the beauty of biblical community. Let us all make the choice to resist sin and live holy and pure lives before God through the power of the Holy Spirit, EVEN WHEN NO ONE IS LOOKING. As a team, let's do this together for the honor of God and beautiful biblical community will be the overflow.