The Christian needs other Christians...

In preparing for our Sr. High small groups for the fall I have been reading a bit on Christian community and accountability.  In re-reading Bonhoeffer's Life Together, I ran across this quote and it's been with me all week:

The Christian needs another Christian who speaks God's Word to her.  She needs her again and again when she becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by herself she cannot help herself w/o ignoring the truth.  She needs her sister as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation.  She needs her sister SOLELY BECAUSE OF JESUS.  The Christ in her own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of her sister; 

her own heart is uncertain, her sister's is sure. 

While I have long subscribed to the understanding that a person cannot be a true follower of Jesus when intentionally cutting ties w/ the Christian community when Bonhoeffer say Christians need other Christians precisely because of Jesus, that seems to be saying something a bit more specific than saying you can't be a Christian w/o the Church or something like that. 

I don't often think that Christ's work in me is to make me needy, to increase my dependence, to not simply turn me to my brother or sister that I may serve them, but to turn me toward them in order that they may receive me and care for me as a true brother.  

It will never cease to be the case that I cannot help myself, save myself, move myself closer to God.  God's work in me is not to change me so that one day I can testify and say, "I used to need God and others, but praise be to God who has worked so mightily in my heart, I have not needed any help in following Christ the last 20 years!"  

Instead I am reminded of Wesley's words in A Plain Account of Christian Perfection when he says, (something like) "The holiest of people still need Christ... because God does not give a stock (giant supply) of holiness, but only a holiness that comes moment by moment."  

The further along we walk w/ Christ our need of Him will only be deeper and more perpetual.  And, Bonhoeffer would add, it is precisely because of this that we need our Christian brothers and sisters, more and more (not less and less).