When two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into action. And when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be sure that I’ll be there.”
Matthew 18:19-20 (The Message)

In my devotional reading I read Matthew 18:15-35. The pieces of the passage were familiar to me, but maybe I haven't read them together before. Or maybe God opened my eyes and my heart. The section is all about relationships. It begins with how to handle a situation in which we perceive someone has hurt us. It ends with forgiveness (70x7 times, Peter!) and the well-known story of the two debtors.

Tucked between those two ideas is v. 19-20. It's like Jesus is saying, "Here is why this is so important: God responds when you are together, when you are in agreement." That is so incredibly powerful. And if I were completely honest, I have a hard time believing it. But what I am going to do is practice what I preach and try it. It's huge. In my Greek class yesterday, we were talking about how the Christian faith and practice was very much thought of as communal. We are in this together. Many, many, many (I can't say most because I don't know for sure) of the "you"s in the New Testament are actually "yous"- they are plural. Maybe the key to actualizing, hmmm...spiritual effectiveness, power...for lack of better terms right now...is to join together before God in prayer.