The Bible describes the Church as a loving and zealous community of believers—those who commune and communicate with each other and strive for unity! God wants cooperative coworkers to work together in the gargantuan task He has given His Church.

Consider the circumstances of the early New Testament Church: "Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common" (Acts 2:44, emphasis added throughout). In the King James Version of the Bible, the English word together appears 484 times. God likes togetherness!

What did Jesus say would be a primary identifying sign of His followers? "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35).

In the Bible, love includes unselfish actions of service, not only emotions. How can Christ's disciples serve one another if they don't know each other and aren't together? Hebrews 10:25 emphasizes the need of "assembling of ourselves together . . . and so much the more as you see the Day [of Christ's return] approaching."

The preceding verse, Hebrews 10:24, stresses the need to "stir up love and good works" among one another. Through Christian fellowship with other believers, we do just that—encourage, strengthen, comfort and help one another. God knows that it's difficult to survive spiritually on our own—that we need the support and encouragement we get from being with others of like mind.

The focus of church services should be about worshipping God and learning more about His Word and how He wants us to live. Paul describes the Church as "the pillar and foundation of the truth" (1 Timothy 3:15, New International Version). The Church is the primary source through which God's truth is taught and learned.

But another focus of the Church is on giving of ourselves to one another. Notice this essential evidence of spiritual conversion: "We know that we have passed from [spiritual] death to life, because we love the brethren . . . By this we know love, because He [Jesus] laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" (1 John 3:14, 16).

The most common fulfillment of "laying down our lives" is that we give of our time for our brethren.

Members of God's Church should be striving to become like Jesus Christ, but are far from that perfection. Each member is a "work in progress," endeavoring to be "transformed" by God and gradually "conformed to the image of His Son" (Romans 12:2; 8:29).

Every member is at a different point in his or her spiritual progress. Sometimes problems arise just like we read about in the New Testament. But we know that God expects those He has called to His Church to work on themselves and to love, forgive and encourage others.

Source: The Church: Help for Greater Growth

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