Key Verse: "For where two or three come together in my
name, there am I with them."
Matthew 18:20
We come to Christ individually. We live for Christ in
community. It is not God's plan to create "Lone Ranger," Christians.
Too many of us suffer from the disease of individualism. We
want to be independent. We want to do it all ourselves. Rather than asking a
friend to borrow something, we will just buy our own. We don't need help. We
will do it ourselves, thank you!
Because most of us can afford to live this way, we miss out
on the art of learning how to live together in community. We do not understand
the gift of sacrifice for others. Even I must admit that I prefer email because
I can read and answer when I have the time. Phone calls can annoy me,
especially when they come at dinner time, or when I'm in the middle of
something that I don't want to interrupt. Our individualism is eroding the
ability for us to practice grace toward one another.
Sadly, our prayer lives are suffering the same fate. We'll
just pray, on our own, at our convenience, thank you. Trust us, we'll get
around to a popcorn prayer for your situation sometime today. How sad that our
schedules and individual thinking is actually depriving us of the presence of
Christ Himself.
Jesus' promise here is that He will be among us when we
sacrifice ourselves and come together for the sake of praying in His name. He
has promised tremendous power to the prayer group, power to even loose and bind
things in heaven! Yet, we would rather do it on our own, when we get around to
it. When life is like this, in truth, we become the losers.
In Hebrews, we are encouraged to come together often.
"And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good
deeds" (including prayer) "Let us not give up meeting together, as
some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another and all the
more as we see the day of the Lord approaching." (Hebrews 10:24-25)
What if, instead of prayer, we talked about a cleaning
project; say, the church. We could hire a cleaning service. That would get the
job done and free us up to go live our lives. A few individuals could take on
the responsibility of cleaning the church, but eventually, that may become
burdensome, especially if their sacrifice isn't appreciated by the rest of the
congregation. However, what if everyone did their part to clean some small area
of the church? Let's say, they came together every Saturday morning for about
an hour and then celebrated their effort with coffee and doughnuts. The burden
would be light for everyone and the benefit would be fellowship and celebration
of life together.
It's the same with prayer. Sure, we can do it individually,
but if we do so, how can we ever bear one another's burdens and make the load
lighter for all? How can Christ be in the midst of us when there is no midst
for Him to be in? That’s not to say he is not with each of us. But he seems to be saying we would get more
out of all of us being with all of us. We
need each other and others need you. What a waste to keep your gifts and your
prayers to yourself. Share what you have been given.
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