“And all that believed were together, and had all things common... And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart.”
The Body
Notice daily, not weekly or occasionally. This early community’s togetherness was not confined to a single formal gathering each week, with private, separate lives filling the rest of the days. It was a daily pattern, temple and house both included, formal worship and ordinary domestic life woven together into one continuous, shared rhythm.
Notice also gladness and singleness of heart, describing the actual internal experience of this daily togetherness, not grudging obligation or exhausted duty, but genuine gladness, singleness of heart suggesting undivided, wholehearted presence rather than distracted or merely dutiful attendance.
This offers a picture worth measuring your own community rhythm against, not as a rigid formula requiring literal daily gathering, but as a genuine aspiration toward this same quality, gladness and singleness of heart, whatever the actual frequency of your own gathering happens to be.
Whatever your own community’s rhythm currently looks like, examine today whether it carries this same gladness, or whether it has become obligation carried without much genuine heart behind it. Ask God for the singleness of heart this early church modeled, in whatever gathering you have available to you.
Strengthen the Body
- Examine whether your own community involvement carries genuine gladness or mere obligation.
- Bring singleness of heart to your next gathering, whatever its actual frequency.
- Consider one way to extend fellowship beyond formal gathering into ordinary, daily life.
Prayer
Lord, give me gladness and singleness of heart in genuine community, not merely obligation carried without joy. Let togetherness extend into my ordinary, daily life. Amen.
Carry this today
Gladness and singleness of heart, not merely dutiful attendance.