Hey peeps, for the past two days, these thoughts has been running through my head, so decided i shall pen them down, haha.
Romans 4:4-5 (NIV version) – 4Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
I thought further, and came up with theses thoughts. The body consists primarily of the head, the main body (your torso), your hands and your legs.
The head, speaks of the leadership of Christ, it consists of the brain, nose, ears, mouth and eyes. God feeds the word to them through the mouth, the eyes see the vision of God for the church, the breath of God, the life, is breathed through the nose, and the ears hear from God. Imagine this in the natural too as you read.
Now the food and air reaches the inside of the body, it nourishes. More importantly, the air gives the body oxygen, or life if you put it. Similiarly in the context of the church, the outpouring that the leadership receives brings life to the church, it feeds the members of the church, without this food, the body will wilt away, and it’ll cease to function. The eyes and ears receive direction from God, they are the ‘visionary’ senses of the body, without it, the church would be aimlessly wandering around, and perish because of the lack of vision. And of course, theres the brain, but i’ll come to this later.
The main body, hands and legs speaks of us under the leadership. The hands and legs are the part of the body that work. The main body contains of a very improtant part of our human anatomy, the spinal cord. Now as you all know, the brain is connected to the sipnal cord, the nerves transmit and receive ‘messages’ to the whole body. As mentioned earlier, the head receives from God, and all the information is sent to the brain. The brain speaks of the organisation and running of the church, cell groups and outreaches. This information after being processed is then sent to the rest of the body. And of course, the hands and legs will do the work required.
Now lets look at this at other way, as we know, the nerves send signals back to the brain too, don’t believe me? Just go touch a hot iron. Similiar in the context of a church, the hands and the legs and every other part of the body will feedback to the brain about various issues about the church. When that happens, the brain will then process the information again, with added information from what it sees and hear (which speaks of God giving insight and vision to the church). When this information is processed and a new course of action is planned, it gets sends out again, and the various process interacts again to do the work required.
Can you imagine one day if your hand and leg (or any other body part for that matter) does not listen to you anymore? Look at the verses below.
1 Cor 12:15-19 (NIV Version) – “15If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 17If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many parts, but one body”.
I think the bible gives a very clear picture. The members of the body are NOT to act on their own will. If that happens, the body would be in serious trouble, in fact, i doubt it can survive for long. This is reinforced by this verse, 1 Cor 12:26 (NIV Version) – “26If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it”.
So as christians, what should we do? Work as one i say. As members, we are called to run with the vision of the leadership above us, not go against it. We are called to FLOW. Can you imagine if your brain tells you to head towards that direction as it is the correct one BUT your leg took a mind of its own and start walking in the opposite direction? And some people wonder why they never get to where they intend to.
As members, we are to be teachable, and accept advice. Sometimes, some people ignore the advice that leaders give them. Do you know what its like? Its like a hand delibrately touching an iron even though the brain is shouting at it to stop. And those same people wonder why they keep ending up in situations they don’t like.
Similiarly, the leadership needs to heed feedback from the rest of the body. Imagine a brain that keeps pushing the legs on even though the legs keep telling the brain, “STOP! I can’t take it anymore, i’m too tired!”. The legs will just give way and collapse, and the body will not go anywhere. As a connect group leader, thats one area i need to improve in, to be more sensitive to the needs of my members.
One last point, what can the transmission of nerve signals be viewed as? It can be viewed as fellowship in my opinion. Haha, and by fellowship, it means good, open, honest communication, where lives are being shared. It is the sharing of physical and spiritual burdens. Its a chance for you and me to have our lives impacted and vice versa.
So after all that is said, lets all work together as a body, and we’ll definitley see breakthroughs after breakthroughs in our cell groups, church and other organisations we’re placed in. Let us all LOVE in one accord.
1 Cor 13:13 – And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is LOVE