Spirit-filled relationships do not arise from our expectations, demands, or definition of relationships. They arise from obedience to Jesus' commands. It is His demand, expectation, and power that distinguish Christian relationships from other “small groups” or other kinds of human relationships. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community , says it well:

Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ. [This] dismisses once and for all every clamorous desire for something more. One who wants more than what Christ has established does not want Christian brotherhood. He is looking for some extraordinary social experience which he has not found elsewhere; he is bringing muddled and impure desires into Christian brotherhood. Just at this point Christian brotherhood is threatened most often at the very start by the greatest danger of all, the danger of being poisoned at its root, the danger of confusing Christian brotherhood with some wishful idea of religious fellowship, of confounding the natural desire of the devout heart for community with the spiritual reality of Christian brotherhood.