we need help

Over at Mart DeHaan's Been Thinking About blog, there is a good post on Michael Phelps, and how what he achieved in winning the unprecedebted eight good medals was impossible apart from the help he received from his teammates in the relay races.

This reminded me of the importance Scripture gives to the truth that we are dependent to some degree on other people. This is true in so many ways in society, and true in the church as revealed in the New Testament, as well.

I really believe that what we do or fail to do can mean the difference between life and death for others. And for ourselves, as well. We need to believe in the truth in Scripture, that we need help from others, and that others need help from us.

This does not mean we're no longer responsible for our own failures and sins. But it does mean that God has made it so that we're not to see the life in Christ as just a life between us and God, but a life that includes all others who are "in Christ." And a life which calls others to faith in Christ, as well.

We need help. I believe this. I want to plug in better to other Christians and what they have to say, to receive the prayers of others, and likewise the warnings as well as the encouragements of others. And I want to help others through prayers and good counsel as well.

Too easily I can just be isolated, or when down go off somewhere to myself, even thinking of a getaway with just myself and God. Such a time has its place as we see even from Jesus' life on earth. But I'm seeing more and more that I need others, and in God's working of grace he uses me in other's lives, as well.

What about you? Do you believe you can make it on your own with God's help, or do you believe that God's help involves an interdependent relationship with others?