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We’ve been talking about our community – you know – the place where God has planted you. And how, in essence when we hear the command to love our neighbor as ourselves, we truly need that to be loving our community.
In the same way that we see each other as members of the body of Christ – one body with many members – we should see our community similarly.
Our community that we live in is one specific place, with many residents, where God has planted us. If we want our community to be clean, safe, funded, and prosperous, then we must have a “together” mindset rather than an individualistic one.
This could be small gestures we make like sending food to someone who needs it, or having a neighborhood cleanup day for that one house on the block who struggles to mow their lawn. It might be as simple as donating some books to the local library.
When we see our community as what it could be, the potential that is build into our community, and we work together with other Christ followers, then the community can change for the better
Jeremiah 29:4-7 (NIV) This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”
We see here that God tells the Israelites that they were to seek the peace and prosperity of the city or community they were living in. Now think about that for just a moment. They were in exile. They had been drug off to Babylon, and yet even though they were exiled there and everything was foreign to them, God tells them to pray for the prosperity of the city of their captors. I would have to ask Jeremiah – are you sure about that? You want me to pray for these heathen, Baal worshiping people to prosper – and for the entire city or community to prosper?
The verse goes on to say that they should pray to God on behalf of that city, because if it prospers then they will also prosper.
In this case we can see how instrumental the community of Believers can be to the community’s environment. The very city that they’ve been exiled to and feel detached from, is the place that could bring them prosperity. But only if they make sure to pray for it and take care of it.
When we pray for our local government, the outcome could be better laws that positively affect us. When we pray and seek after the proper funding and help needed for the local elementary school staff, our communities’ children prosper.
Do you see how this can be applicable to us now, right this very day. I feel very strongly that we are not getting out of all this mess we are in, unless those of us who believe hit our knees and pray to God. And we ought not for deliverance from any government or government official. But pray that God would cause this sickness to leave, and for us to prosper.
I’m not talking about name it and claim it prosperity doctrines and teachings. I’m talking about moving from the attitude of surviving to the attitude of thriving in spite of the circumstance that each of us are in from our respective communities.
Thriving is what people do when they live life to the point of planting gardens and building houses, giving their sons and daughters in marriage, and increasing the size of their families. And that is what God has called us to do in the midst of this exile, is simply this – live life. This is our community.