Members Depend upon Each Other

Our Love for God

Loving God, Trusting Christ

Submit to God in Love

1 Corinthians 12:19-26 The Message

19-24 But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”? As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the “lower” the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with; it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?
25-26 The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.

For Reflection

Being a part of a supportive body of people is more than a membership card. One learns, participates, gives, and receives in the fellowship of Christ. It is a family in the best sense of that word. In short it is the physical manifestation of the spiritual being we know as God. Messy and not perfect, mind you, but the way we grow into ideal grace.

Pray

Pray so that you understand and follow the God Who lives in the midst of us.

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