Last Friday on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindall used some fun imagery to describe the way Christians interact.

He compared us to porcupines on a winter night. The cold drives us together in a tight huddle to keep warm. But as soon as we start

touching, we begin jabbing one another with our sharp quills, scattering the huddle. And when it

gets cold again, we move back in, and the piercing begins all over again. It's an endless dance.

Well, the truth is, we need each other. So let's pick up the study now in Romans

chapter 12.

Paul says, I beg of you, I plead with you, please listen to me. Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its mold

of isolation, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove that the will of God

is all it claims to be.

The first reason I should be involved with people is that God commands it.

He says in verse 9, let love be without hypocrisy.

He says in verse 10, be devoted to one another in love.

That's a command. Ever suffered alone?

Who hasn't? It's devastating. Ever talk with someone who has suffered through something all alone?

They change. Most don't do it and remain healthy. Something seems to

change. Now, why should I? Why should I connect with another person or why should my family connect with another family?

I mean, after all, it's not the mark of our times. We don't do that as a people.

I expect that in the world system because that's the mold in which the world has squeezed itself.

That's the safe way to live.

Hard, difficult, lonely, despairing as that may be.

It's still the safest because you reach out to a whirling,

you might very well get ripped off, but it has come into the church.

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