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Travel Far. Go Together.

The Twentieth Century Methodist missionary and theologian, E. Stanley Jones shared a very strong message that we enter the kingdom of God personally, but we live it corporately.

That is essential. Salvation is, of course, individual. Christ calls each of us to a personal decision to make Him Lord of our lives, but then we have to enter the family of God. That's a lifelong journey with our fellow brothers and sisters within the body of Christ. It's to be lived together in community.

We are the community of believers. In 1 Corinthians 12, it says this: “The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts. And though all the parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”

So within the body and with Christ as our head, our faith adventure with Christ has a corporate character.

It's not just about Jesus and me. Inheriting our corporate faith is the idea of togetherness. There's an African proverb that I really like. It says, if you want to travel fast, go alone. If you want to travel far, go together.

We find the word saint in its singular form only three times in the Bible. That's kind of interesting to me. The word saint in its plural form appears around 95 times.

So where saints is written in the New Testament, it always refers to the Church, the collective family of God. When we join the community by grace through faith, we are adopted not as only children. When we join God's family, we join a loving family with many, many siblings of many, many kinds and shapes and sizes.

Being together and going far together means more than gathering in the same room or even eating together. This godly togetherness means that together we worship, we pray, we give, we make disciples, we help each other when things are going badly, we help each other when things are going well.

How in the world is that possible? Spirit of God transforms our individual oriented inwardness to a corporate oneness in Christ. That kind of unity produces a community of shared lives and purposes.

The gospel is proclaimed and the kingdom of God is extended. Hallelujah to that. It's not a solo path, but a togetherness journey.

My father said if I was going to college, I had to go to a Nazarene school, so I went to Eastern Nazarene College. There I learned about a community of people. I did not accept Christ even through my years of being at ENC, but I always knew that there was something unique and very special about these Christian people.

I guess I just wasn't willing to put my full foot in the water. I just wanted to sprinkle my toe there a little bit. Until we jump all the way in, we don't understand that community, do we? It's time for the church to be renewing our covenant with God so that by His grace, we will really be the church, the God-created body of Christ on earth, and it's only then that we will become a God-sent, missional people who covenant together to belong to God, to be holy, to be the image of God following Christ wherever He takes us into our world.

What are you doing today to make sure that somebody will see Christ?

Somebody will know something more about Christ than they knew before. Most of all, somebody will see the love of Christ shining through our faces. It might entice them in ways we can't even imagine, to want to know who Jesus Christ is. Let our light shine, we say. Well, let's let our light shine.

Let's be light. We reflect the light of Christ. The world needs us. It needs Christ, and it will see Christ through us if we are willing. If we're not doing the best we can, let's stop and take account.

Thank you, Jesus. Help us to walk with you today. Help us to be your light. Help us to be your peace, your grace, your mercy, your words. Our world needs you.

Let us be You. Amen.

- Dr. Cookie Tressler serves as Adjunct Professor for the Hispanic Pastoral Ministries at Nazarene Bible College.