From Alan's great post on building the church comes this quote from Dietrich Bonnhoffer:
Love community, and you will kill it. Love your brother, and you will build it.
Brilliant. How many times do we try to produce the fruit of the kingdom rather than simply seeking it and living it and letting it produce it's own fruit? We look at all the good things that God promised we would have or told us we should have, and think that we are responsible for achieving them. No, we are responsible to simply obey Jesus. If we do that, the fruit will come.
Love God, love each other and watch God produce the community.
That's challenging stuff. I need to read more Bonhoffer. He's pretty popular in my church. We're trying to build community through loving one another but sometimes it comes through as though we're loving community. I guess time will tell.
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