Friday, January 23, 2015
1 Corinthians 12:26-27 And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.
"NO MAN IS AN ISLAND"
Maybe you have heard well-meaning people say that they can read their Bibles and even worship on their own, suggesting in that way that they really don't need a pastor or a church.
The holy fact is that Christians need one another. Since the Spirit knows that, He teaches us not to isolate ourselves from brothers and sisters in the faith.
When the English clergyman John Donne (1572-1631) wrote a poem which included the line "No man is an island," he may well have been striving to relay a Bible thought. Believing members of the Body of Christ, the Church, are joined together as integrally as the individual parts of the human body. There is an inescapable interaction as Christians "suffer" with one another in down times and "rejoice" with one another in up times.
While isolating oneself for a time can be soothing -- at times Jesus went off to be alone with His Father in prayer -- it is hardly the preferred M.O. (method of operation) of those who are members of the Body of Christ. Rather, God's children are interested in one another and care for each other, watching for opportunities to "divide" somebody else's sorrows or to "multiply" somebody else's joys.
"Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching" (Hebrews 10:24f).
Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.
Before our Father’s throne
We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims, are one,
Our comforts and our cares.
(The Lutheran Hymnal, 464:1-2)
Lord, help me remember that as one of Your gifted children I am here to help and encourage others -- even as they, in turn, are here for me. Amen.
