By Laura Gibson
He (one who delights in false humility) has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow. Colossians 2:19
The chemical composition of the human body… less than five dollars
Its vital organs and tissues… more than 45 million
Christ-followers knitted together in the Body of Christ
through his life that gives life…. PRICELESS!
Last year I had the opportunity to instruct a Biology Lab for a local home school co-op. Using a microscope, we observed basic cell structures and viewed slides on cell division and learned how cells multiplied. We studied about the basic systems found in living creatures and the vast variety of organisms God created. With dissection, we examined specimens and how each one was different yet had similar structures within. By the end of the year we had considered, discerned, explored, inspected, regarded, scoped and scrutinized all that was biology (within a basic bio lab). Though we could touch and see what God had created, it was lifeless, dead, void of life and all that it brings.
So it is with us… lifeless and dead until “God made you alive with Christ.” (Colossians 2:13) We went from death in this worldly dimension into the true dimension of life, becoming a member in the body of Christ. When we are joined with Christ, by Christ, we are no longer bound by worldly sin and laws but bound by His love and grace. So often we embrace the eternal life given as a free gift only to revert to a life of works as we try in our own might to grow his kingdom. His church exists on a spiritual plane that transects this earthly world through the Body of Christ. It breathes not oxygen but the Holy Spirit. It does not feed on food but on the Word of God. It does not seek programs and methodologies but to exercise our spirits in serving the Lord and one another. By humbling ourselves and “holding fast” with the head, “from whom the whole body, (the church) grows as God causes it to grow.” (Colossians 2:19) “For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His purpose.” (Philippians 2:13)
Life and growth comes from Christ, but every member of the body also affects the health of the body. As part of a body, like a bone, I cannot work outside of the body. I am created to be what I am in the body. And being part of the body I have basic spiritual needs and basic spiritual functions. If I resist supporting the body or resist the necessary growth to become more like Jesus, not only will my spiritual health be affected but that of the body. Though Christ creates and grows the church, we as members our called to....
STRENGTHEN our spirit in the Lord with His word and prayer while trusting in the Lord to do His work. Drink long this new water, abundant and fresh. Breathe deep the Spirit. Feast on the word. Hold fast to the Head, which is Jesus Christ. As holding on to a hat in a torrent of wind which continues to seek to snatch it from you, so cling to Christ and avoid reaching out for empty philosophies and traditions which are mere wisps in the wind...
EXERCISE “works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12-13).
GROW in love that can only come from Christ. For God so loved the world that He gave what was most precious to Himself. Release those matters that keep you from growing: personal rights, emotions, expectations, hurt. Draw so near to Jesus that his grace becomes your grace; His forgiveness becomes your forgiveness. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.
Read Colossians 2:1-23.
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