If you followed the Lord for a thousand years, you would still need the ministry of the body of Christ as much as you did the day you first believed.

To be part of God's redemptive rescue is not only a high calling but a moral obligation.

True biblical love doesn't just accept you, bless you with patience, and greet your failures with forgiveness. Along with all these things, it works to do everything it can to protect you from the eternal weaknesses of heart that make you susceptible to temptation.

Now, if these people are not the focus and object of ministry, then what is ministry?

If true humanity is bound up in community with God and godly community with others, I will never experience it when all my eyes ever see is my own need.

Love that cares, listens.

There is no love which does not become help.

And he wanted more than anything else, deeply and compassionately, to be of help; and he could be of help in this age, and was of help, because artist and philosopher as well as theologian, he cared for culture as well as for Christ.6

We don't set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people's hearts.

A selfish person will never learn the joy of giving and being a blessing to others.

Here's the question: Will we allow the things that break God's heart to break our hearts too? It'll mean more tears, more listening. It may even be the reason why so many of us struggle with our own personal burdens and heartaches - God is allowing us to feel the pain, to be weak and broken so that our prayers have power.

The role of the church is to be doctor and nurse, not judge and jury.