Love and Community

The goal of life is to have a real and authentic spiritual journey, to be transformed. In the New Testament the destination of this transformation is the person of Jesus.

Nakedness is the goal of the spiritual journey. What we see in the fall metaphor in Genesis is that our separation from God comes with a corresponding 'covering up'. This is regression. To progress towards God again we must be unclothed. We must remove all that has come in the way of our relationship with God, our pride and shame. God, for His part, promises to wear these clothes on our behalf, which is what happens on the cross. The God-Man, who we believe was perfectly united with God in all he did, wore the disgrace that we have become used to. He stepped into the breach in that event. He does that for each one of us again and again.

To experience this transfer we must join in with some form of community of like-minded people. This is otherwise known as a church. When we are loved in this context we come to understand what God's attitude towards us is and 'when we go to our brother and confess, we go to God' (Bonhoeffer - who else?). This has been my experience at a group I have belonged to for the last 9 months or so. We meet monthly and talk about who we are and what we're up to. We let each other in and in some small way we become naked with one another. That last sentence is in no way to be understood literally.

In doing this I have learned so much about God, my brothers and me. It has been a total privilege to have been trusted and divulged to and it has changed me in so many ways. It is for this reason that I highly recommend you do the same. Get together with some people you can be honest with and start doing just that, being honest before each other and God. It will change your life - I guarantee it.