Dear Inner Circle,
“Jesus had twelve disciples, and his inner circle of three.”
Yes, AND-
I’ve said this before, and it was not in the context God intended it to be. We can often find ourselves trapped in a culture that bends toward exclusivity. The false comfort of closed-off groups, the allure of being seen in the right company, of being one of the "chosen" few. It feels safe. It feels secure. But it’s not the security Christ offers. Yes, Jesus had twelve disciples. And within that, He had an even smaller circle of three. We need to be careful not to miss the point in our rush to draw lines.
It’s frighteningly easy to twist that truth into something it was never meant to be. To completely disregard God’s sending of a perfect example to look up to and instead say, “Jesus had His twelve,” as if that’s the end of the story. We take comfort in knowing He kept close friends, and in the same breath, we allow ourselves to quietly reject the others; the ones who don’t fit our mold, or who challenge us, or who we might deem ‘unworthy’ of our time and thoughts.
Jesus did not create community to make a point of exclusion. He created it to open the door wide. The twelve were not an elite group meant to preserve a status. They were a place of preparation for the broadest of invitation that would extend to all.
Whether we find ourselves in a group we’re proud of, or wishing we were in one, both are missing the heart of true belonging. The first is the temptation to form walls around our relationships, to clutch tightly to the familiar and the comfortable, and say, “This is enough. This is safe.” The second is the ache of longing, the belief that our worth will only be validated by the right invitation, the right connection. BOTH are a distortion of what God intended for us. The abundant life that Christ died for us to have. The desire to belong is innate. It is God-given. It is good. But the belief that true belonging is found in being seen, validated, adored, and wanted by others? That is a lie. It is a false gospel, one that offers only an endless spiral of dissatisfaction. It is a thirst that will never be quenched by human approval, no matter how many people invite you in. What we are invited into by Christ is not simply belonging, it is an identity. He has already declared you enough. You need no other validation. Your worth is not contingent upon the approval of any group, any inner circle, any fleeting moment of inclusion.
Do you whole-heartedly trust that this is enough?
The community Christ calls us into is not one that contains exclusivity or comparison; it is about the radical, unconventional love that welcomes the outsider, the overlooked, the brokenhearted. And the beauty in this is that He does not call us into community that shrinks our hearts into more comfortable spaces. He calls us to open our arms wider, to include those we would never have chosen for ourselves, and to seek out the ones who are sitting on the edge. The ones who feel they don’t belong, or who have been pushed to the margins.
There is fruit that comes from intimate fellowship between believers. Scripture emphasizes the importance of “iron sharpening iron” and having people that support you, call you higher, inspire you. He created people to find joy in one another’s company.
Yes, AND-
It does not take deep, intense, commentary-filled study to see that Christ’s life was not about creating a small, comfortable bubble. He was a King who left His throne and died for those who spit on Him. He invited them to His banquet and set a place for them before they accepted.
He healed outsiders, crossed cultural lines, and invited those whom society deemed invaluable. Invisible. He did not just associate with the popular or the acceptable. He sought out the lost and the lonely. Sought: he was effortful and intentional. The “inner” circle was not facing inward, with each person finding comfort in one another, linking their arms to keep others out. Christ-like community faces outward. They inspire one another to reach beyond themselves, to see those outside, to invite them in. This is the community of Christ. This is the heart of God, and the heart He calls us to cultivate in our own lives.
"When you give a feast," He said, “do not invite your friends or your rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.” (Luke 14:12–14) This is the gospel. This is the invitation: to reach out to the ones who cannot repay, to open our arms to the unseen, to the overlooked.
What are we doing with our time?
There is a call to “sacrifice” time that could be spent making fun memories and being comfortable with the people you picked out. I put sacrifice in quotation marks because when we break free of these misled beliefs and live the life Scripture outlines for us, I think we see that His way is actually better. We aren’t missing out on anything. This life is not just about feeling good or finding our place. The very purpose of those in Christ is to be disciples who make disciples. Every moment we spend longing for inclusion in the wrong places, every moment we invest in the fleeting comfort of our own circles, is time that could have been spent advancing the Kingdom. Yes, we are designed to belong, AND we are also called to invite others into that belonging. The feeling of exclusion in the present, the ache of missing out, seems significant.
How much more should it bother us to think that time spent fixating on these feelings could prevent the salvation of people around us because we were too preoccupied to see them?
-Lyd <3