Category: Kingdom Community

Fellowship and koinonia

gong

“Without Love You Ain’t Nothing” – Larry Norman

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“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” I Cor. 13:1-2 (NIV) The title of this post is from a Larry Norman (Christian music pioneer) song of the 1970’s, and he was echoing the words from I Cor. 13:2. He sang them because these are some of the most important words in Christianity. This passage shocks us with the surprising truth that even if someone has great spiritual gifts they are nothing without love! In fact, they are a nuisance, like a noisy gong. They are not a true disciple. What is surprising is that God would give spiritual gifts Continue Reading →

spiritual growth food

How To Feed Each Other With Jesus’ Food

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“Speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. Eph. 4:15-16 ” NIV It is an amazing truth that we are actually part of the body of Jesus Christ, the Saviour. He is the head, the one who is in charge, and we are all parts of him, people who he is coordinating all around the world as one whole. But the main point today is that it is from Jesus that our spiritual growth comes. Our connection to Christ is the channel of our spiritual growth. And, dare we say, if our connection is weak our spiritual growth will be weak. And Jesus is causing us to Continue Reading →

teamwork harmony people

How To Live In Harmony With Our Brothers And Sisters

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If we want to live in full harmony with our brothers and sisters in the Lord then it is essential that we learn to die to self in every way. It is not easy to live in oneness with others and to steer away from complaining and grudges. We will be blessed if we learn to live in peace until we die, for Jesus said “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” Matt. 5:8 (ESV) Even when we have to work through a disagreement we can learn to do it peacefully and “speak the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15). In order to be faithful in this area we should think of ourselves as pilgrims on this earth. We are just traveling through this place so we don’t have to grasp for coming out on top. Honors and status in this life are not important; instead, Continue Reading →

orchestra

Everyone Gets To Play

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If we ask ourselves the question “what does scripture say should happen when believers gather together” (i.e. the weekly service) we might be surprised. One thing that dominates the various passages (Rom. 12:6-10; I Cor. 11:17-24;I Cor. 14:26-33; Gal. 6:2; Eph. 5:19-21; Col. 3:16; Heb. 10:24-25; James 5:14-16) is that there should be the mutual exercise of gifts to edify one another. This may not seem radical at first but it is. How many Sunday services have you been to where many different people exercise gifts to edify others in a mutual way? Usually the preacher does nearly all the ministry. The worship time is a time when people other than the pastor exercise their gifts. But where are the different people exercising the various gifts in Romans 12 (e.g., exhorting, teaching, leading, mercy, service, prophecy)? Where are all the different contributors mentioned in I Cor. 14? In Eph. 5:19 Continue Reading →

patience patient

Accepting The Faults Of Others

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We should be patient with the faults of others as well as our own faults. We can pray that God will give us strength to be patient and kind. We can remind ourselves that others have to bear with our faults. We can remember that we usually cannot correct our own faults without great effort; why should we be impatient with the habitual faults of others? Besides, human faults are an opportunity for us to allow our character to be refined. If it is our place to say something about someone’s fault, and we have mentioned it more than once then we should not nag someone so that we get into a dispute over it. We can just fulfill our proper role without becoming angry or aggressive. We should not take the situation out of God’s hands and into our own, but rather seek to honor God with our meekness Continue Reading →