Community
COMMUNITY
Principles of Corporate Living
Acts 2:41-47; 4:32
Many of our spiritual problems do not arise from ourselves; they arise from our relations with others. It is not an easy thing to adjust oneself to other people and their wills. Christianity should teach us that very thing, for Christianity is the science of living well with others according to Jesus Christ. Many of our attempts to live together with others are haphazard; they do not obey the underlying principles of corporate living, for there are principles or laws of corporate living as well defined as those that underlie nature. We must attempt to discover them and live by them. All of us have to live in relationship with others. Many try to do it without any underlying principles, and it ends in disaster with its resultant bitterness and strife.
Victorious Living
(Week 42, Sunday)
Plenty for All—Poverty for Many
Matthew 15:32-37; Luke 3:10-11
Cooperation is a higher principle [than competition] with a higher result. A management engineer puts it this way: “If a business insures the security of its employees by profit sharing, it automatically insures itself.” That same principal of cooperation must be applied to community relationships. Cooperatives may not be the final answer, but they are a step on the road to the final answer, for they distribute wealth widely through cooperative effort.
The Way
(Week 51, Thursday)
Love’s Burden Is Light
Deuteronomy 10:12; James 1:27
There is fun and freedom in loving, and the more widely and deeply you love, the more fun and the greater freedom you have.
Growing Spiritually
(Week 19, Saturday)
Growth in Freedom
John 8:31-36
We come this week to consider growth in freedom. Everyone wants freedom. . . .
We all want freedom, but so few know how to get it. They seek it first, and if you seek freedom first, you’ll miss it. We are made not primarily for freedom, but for obedience. Freedom is a byproduct of obedience. If you put freedom first, it will be the freedom to get tied up with yourself and others. Some try to get freedom by doing as they like; others try to get freedom by doing as they ought. Only the latter find freedom. The first freedom turns to futility. The second freedom turns to fertility.
The first lie ever told was about this matter of freedom. Satan said to Adam and Eve, if you do as you like, “ye shall be as gods” (Gen 3:5 KJV). More people get hooked on that bait than on any other. Satan is a skillful player and lets you win the first few tricks in the game of freedom, and then he cleans you out.
But Satan isn’t quite as clever as he seems. In reality he is a fool. For everything he brings on others comes on him. When he prepares a hell for others, he himself has to live in it. He seems to have a freedom to ruin, but it turns out to be a freedom to ruin only himself.
There is only one way to be free, and that is through obedience. But this must be qualified thus: obedience to the right thing. You can obey and end in bondage if you are obeying the wrong authority. The center of your obedience must be set straight. . . .
So freedom comes only through obedience to the right thing.
Growing Spiritually
(Week 50 Sunday)
The Faultless Law of Freedom
Galatians 5:1, 13-14
Where is the “faultless” law of freedom? It is not really a law; it is a person. That person is Christ. It is a strange and incredible thing, but the more we belong to him, the more freedom we enjoy. And I mean “enjoy.” It is freedom without a “catch” in it. You are not always waiting for the blow to fall. It is what Jesus meant when he said: “If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).
Growing Spiritually
(Week 50, Tuesday)