His plans become our plans. His values become our values. Such a life is altogether different from the self-life. But now are they many members, yet but one body. God intends believers to function together as an assembly of His people.
Many people today think of the church as a building, as a place to go.
But the New Testament shows the church as the assembly of those who are saved in Christ. This assembly operates as a body with each member taking his part, each member receiving care, protection, strength, and nurture from the other members. Every member must have his own relationship with God, but God intends that every member experience that relationship in union with the other members of Christ's body. Nowhere in the New Testament is a Christian instructed how to live his faith apart from the body of believers. That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.