Why do we struggle with building relationships?

How would you describe yourself?  Are you a Christian?  A follower of Jesus? Or a disciple making disciple?  We all know that we are to be disciples who follow Jesus and spur others on to do the same.  But the reality is that we often aren't.  Why?

The problem isn't biblical when we look in the Bible we can't escape the one another's of the epistles, or Jesus gathering the 12 to learn from him, or Paul's discipling the Timothy's and Titus' of the first century world.  Even when we read the Old testament we can't get away from it; Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha and so on.  We read Acts 2 and see a young vibrant church community who are in and out of one another's homes and are committed to one another.

Yet you look at the books in the Christian Bookshop on church and you will see titles like 'Total Church' or 'Gospel Centred Church'  among others which all advocate church as community committed to one another and reaching out to others to include them in that community.  We need the books and people love them because we aren't very good at doing it.

Some of the reasons are historical, there has been a period of time when we haven't lived life like this, when discipleship hasn't been a priority or even in the vocabulary of the church.  Some are cultural, we still battle the idea that my home is my castle - with metaphorical moat, drawbridge and portcullis - or simply our British reserve.  Some are geographical we live spread out not in one community - I'm not sure about the genuineness of this when you consider how quickly we can travel compared to the first century, and the obvious answer is to move house to be in an area together. Some are diary issues, we are too busy, to which I simply want to say 'REALLY?'

But I wonder if deeper than any of these, in fact lurking behind many of, if not all of, these reasons, or perhaps we should call them excuses, is sin.  We don't want to let people get to know us really well because then our hearts with all their sin will be exposed and we want, no, we need, people to think well of us.  Discipleship means getting to know one another and being committed enough to one another to love in challenging costly ways.  To be concerned with our ultimate good - godliness, enjoying and knowing our Father - not our temporary ease, comfort and idol of self.