But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin (1 John 1:7).

[Editor’s note: We welcome Ben Waldstein to the CD writing team!  Comments and encouragements for this, his first CD, are invited and appreciated!

Every summer, the youth group takes a trip to FUGE camp, and for 5 days, we do various fun activities, along with learning about the gospel. Now the thing that makes camp so much fun and impactful is the community of fellow believers constantly around you and with you throughout the day.

I can say that after four years of going to camp, it's a life changing experience, and one of the big reasons for that is because of constantly being around fellow believers. Being in an environment where there are people who are trying to do good in the community and grow in their spiritual maturity all around you is such a wonderful way to grow in faith.

As Alex preached about the Holy Trinity a few weeks ago, one of his main points was that everything exists in relationships, so why shouldn't we as followers of Christ do the same? 

In our walk with Christ, sometimes it's easy to just try and do everything yourself, and when you mess up, no one but you has to know. But John says that being truthful about sin, and bringing it into the light, invites us into a whole community of people that have gone through so many different challenges that can help us through ours.

When I was at camp last year, I had a wonderful community with the high school guys. Every day we would come back into our cabins and we would just talk about things, life, and what we can do to improve our walk with God. Being in that environment helped me realize that we all have problems and things we’re trying to do better, and that we’re not alone in them.

Most of the time when we're going through something, someone that we know or are close with has gone through something similar, and can help and guide us to the light.

It's not about hiding your sins from the light and acting like they never happened, it's about working through them with the people we care about the most. So when we stumble, there are people around us to pick us back up. 

God, help me to realize that being a Christian means that we live in a wonderful community that support us. Help me to remember that we are never alone in our trials, and that there are people in our lives to help us through them. Amen.