Community: Heaven on Earth, and Hell by Shared Delusion

Today let us come together and speak of community — its definition, its demonstration, and its fruit. We will look at two expressions:
the New Heaven on Earth community, and its inverse, the community of hell on earth, formed by ignorance and shared delusion.

The first is simple to speak of. It has always existed and still persists, though rarely within the structures of American religious institutions.
The first followers — men and women both — gathered under a greater identity than their individual selves. Their identity was Christ among them. Emmanuel. Yes, He ascended, but He did not leave us as orphans. He merely stepped beyond the veil and continues reaching His hand through in the form of yielded souls.

Community begins in hiddenness. In the inner seeking. In the heart where the foundation is laid, stone by stone, before anything outward and authentic can be formed. Every participant must secure their heart and identity beforehand, for a family cannot be built on shifting selves. Community is the marriage of chosen identity unified in Christ before it becomes anything visible.

When self is second, “we” becomes natural.
When Christ is identity, community is the overflow.
He is the heart, the name, the country, the universe. All is Christ.

This requires a laying down — a self-erasure born not of shame but of zeal for the greater identity we were told exists and must be sought. Not created by our imagination, but encountered by revelation. The Kingdom works from behind the veil where He went to prepare a place for us. We follow Him through by adopting His identity as He adopted the Father’s — all while counting equality with God as something beyond grasp. Perfect humility, perfect surrender, perfect foundation.

The early church saw this firsthand.
A great outpouring.
A revival of awe.
Twelve pillars. Twelve pearls.
Souls encountering wonder for the first time and the natural overflow becoming worship, praise, and self-forgetfulness.

Such a community cannot be built by man, because man corrupts what he is allowed to control. Give him honor and he exalts himself. That is why we kneel in the mud with you, Beloveds — to remember the smell of the manure so we never forget what we are without grace.

This community is built on Love as foundation and Christ as identity. It births joy, unity, generosity, and a shared life that is familial rather than political.

Now let us speak of its opposite.

A community built on fear, hatred, or the terror of “otherness” is not community at all — it is organized isolation. Its fruits are broken families, embittered hearts, inner destitution, and explosions of poorly restrained emotion. It mimics togetherness but breeds alienation. It gathers, but it does not unite.

This is the shape of much of modern American Christianity, and much of our politics — communities founded on exclusion rather than Love’s holy inclusion. Love embraces. Love gathers. Love ministers. Fear isolates. Hatred divides. The former aligns to heaven; the latter mimics hell.

Hatred empowers its organized divisive unity through a shared mass delusion mixed with a whiff of truth to lure the unwary.

Wars are the natural progression of a peoples collective heart being weighed and mercy shown and lessons of intercession given for all.

As always beloveds take what feels true to you.