September 23: Speaking Truth in Love

The Apostle Paul uses the analogy of a body to describe how followers of Jesus belong to one another in the family of God. Just like a human body has many different, mutually interdependent parts that are essential for the life of the whole, so God’s people are united together for life. We were never meant do the Christian life alone. We need each other more than we realize.

No one in the body is the same, but everyone has a place, a calling, and a gift to share “for building up the body of Christ” (v. 12). We need each other. If one person is missing, everyone is missing out.

The goal of all of our mutual interdependence as a body is to grow to maturity, “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (v. 13). That growth to maturity will be marked by unity of the faith, knowledge of the Son of God, and resilience in the truth (vv. 13–14). And it happens by “speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love” (vv. 15–16).

So how does Jesus grow us up to become like Himself? He enfolds us in a community of fellow believers who speak the truth to one another in love. Truth and love together under the leadership of our Jesus. That’s what our souls are so desperately hungry for.

Jesus is inviting you on the journey of a lifetime. The first step is to know God through worship. The second step is to feed your soul through community. Every week, dozens of our church’s Communities meet with the goal of speaking the truth to one another in love under the leadership of Jesus. It’s where we can get real and learn together what it means to follow Jesus. Community is where we feed our souls.