"If We Are The Body"
It's crowded in worship today
As she slips in
Trying to fade into the faces
The girls' teasing laughter is carrying farther than they know
Farther than they know
CHORUS
But if we are the Body
Why aren't His arms reaching
Why aren't His hands healing
Why aren't His words teaching
And if we are the Body
Why aren't His feet going
Why is His love not showing them there is a way
There is a way
A traveler is far away from home
He sheds his coat
And quietly sinks into the back row
The weight of their judgmental glances tells him that his chances
Are better out on the road
CHORUS But if we are the Body
Why aren't His arms reaching
Why aren't His hands healing
Why aren't His words teaching
And if we are the Body
Why aren't His feet going
Why is His love not showing them there is a way
Jesus paid much too high a price
For us to pick and choose who should come
And we are the Body of Christ
Chorus (2x) If we are the body
Why aren't His arms reaching
Why aren't His hands healing
Why aren't His words teaching
And if we are the body
Why aren't His feet going
Why is His love not showing them there is a way
Jesus is the way
(lyrics/song by Casting Crowns)
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Christ in us means LOVE dwells in us, and LOVE is a MANY-splendored thing.
Every member in the body shares blood and water to nourish each other, and we are connected through the blood and living water of Jesus to strengthen and do the same.
ALL TOGETHER NOW
I wrote the following just before getting confirmation and the words above that say ALL TOGETHER NOW;
We are one
I need you, you need me
The body together for Christ to be seen
Deep calls to deep,
A connection inside you and me
Where we are weak, we can each be made strong
Here in this body is where we belong.
(Karl Cobos, August 10, 2009)
Right after I wrote this I went to the mailbox and as I flipped open my son's Highlight magazine the words "ALL TOGETHER NOW" were written, big and bold!
The article mentioned "synchrony... united, rhythmic timing.
"It reminded me of the synchrony of the heartbeat I've heard of when a lot of people join hands for a time.
In regards to THE BODY, in order for me to just move to the counter and pick up an apple, all these messages are being sent out at the same time to MOVE me there...my legs, full arm movements , leaning, and grasping the apple....now think of the movement of the body of Christ(us) to accomplish something...the messages of the Spirit that flow to get us all there.
How can the hand say to the foot, "I don't need you!"
Your thoughts?
PS. don't forget to write Dan an encouraging message here or on the last post.
His family have just arrived for new missionary work in TAIWAN guys. Thanks.
Ezek 37:1-3 (NIV) The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" I said, "O Sovereign Lord, you alone know."
ReplyDeleteHow can it be that the body of Christ is sometimes just like that song? What a message in that song so often the Body has wounded itself, tortured itself, amputated itself. It is crazy, the body of Christ should be doing what Christ did when he was here, reaching out, caring, helping, serving. So why is His body sometimes so clickish, sometimes so negative and faithless, often time so hurtful and destructive?
In a way God’s church today is like the valley of dry bones. A useless dead army, when we should be the best equipped, best organized, most elite army ever. To look at the condition of the Body of Christ today, and know where we should be can be depressing. We may say, the Christian Church is dead and hopeless. But I love the conversation Ezekiel had here with God. God showed Ezekiel this valley full of dry bones and said, can these bones live? Ezekiel was skeptical, he did not say, they could or couldn’t live again. So then God made Ezekiel prophesy in verses 5-6, “I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life.” Clearly, God is saying that He can take His Church, acting like a dry dead body, and make it alive again.
So then the question is why would God let his Body get in such awful condition, dead, and nothing but a pile of dry bones before He promised to bring us back to life again? Wouldn’t it have been easier if He had healed His church when we began to show signs of getting sick? Then we would have been so much more productive over all these years. But Like Martha when she told Jesus, after Lazarus died, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died. John 11:21 (NIV) The story is told that Jesus intentionally did not come and heal Lazarus when he got sick. After He had heard that Lazarus was sick and near death he stayed where he was for two more days. When He finally arrived at Lazarus’ home Lazarus had been dead and in the grave for four days. Why did Jesus come so late? According to what God told Ezekiel, the reason He brought life to the dead bones was the same reason He let Lazarus die. In order for all to know that the LORD has done it.
When the church is restored and all the body of Christ is filled with strength and power no one person can say “Look what I have done.” Everyone will be forced to say that this great thing must be from the LORD.
Why does the hand tell the foot “I don’t need you”?
ReplyDeleteWell, it might be because the foot just stomped all over those fragile fingers. It’s been said that Christians are the only people who shoot their own wounded – and there is a lot of truth to that statement.
Inherent in any relationship is the possibility of being hurt. But for some reason it seems so much more painful when it comes from a fellow believer. Like Moses, we expect our brethren to understand and when they don’t, we often withdraw into the wilderness of isolation and turn Christianity into a solo pursuit.
The church has become a group of turtles – separate, solitary, slow-moving and well-armoured. Some of us are snapping turtles, ready to bite at anything, and some of us are box turtles, sealing ourselves up tight whenever we feel the least bit threatened.
Colin G. Kruse wrote “there is no real fellowship with God which is not expressed in fellowship with other believers.” God never intended his church to be a collection of solitary turtles. Rather it is His will that His children shed their shells and come together to worship, to pray, to break bread, and to encourage and help one another.
Dan and Sharilyn;
ReplyDeletewow!... really great insights, visuals and analogies guys. The writing is appreciated and I'm sure will continue to bless.
Let your friends know they can connect here too, thanks.
I'd like to comment more, but gotta go for now.
Really enjoyed these writings today and may share them with others.
Shari,
ReplyDeleteI was thinking about what you said, "Christians are the only people who shoot their own wounded."
Thinking about how we shoot at members of our own body who don't eat the right way, or who don't dress to the right standards, or sing music from outside of the authorized Hymnal.
We put in front of a firing squad people who have fallen into sin by disfellowshipping them instead of nurturing them back into spiritual health again.
I now at times church discipline is necessary, The Bible explains the proper way that is to be done. But I also think we are not patient enough with people to love them enough to take the necessary time to understand them and heal them. To really help them work through their struggles and return them back into favor with God. It is a process that takes earnest prayer, much time and heartfelt tenderness.
So say our members get spiritually weak, what do we do about it? Say they commit adultery and murder, like David did. They publically and verbally deny being a follower of Jesus and swear against it with an oath, like Peter did. When times get tough they quit their commitment to serve God in the ministry, like Mark did. When under stress and their lives are threatened, they run away from their problems, like Elijah did. Or to avoid the possibility of a life threatening situation they lie about being married allowing another man to make sexual advances toward his wife, like Abraham did. Say you are a deceiver and crafty and you steal the birthright and the blessing from your own brother, like Jacob did. Or you are jealous of your spoiled younger brother so you sell him as a slave and lie to your father about what actually happened to him, like Joseph's 10 brothers did. Or you move in, and start living with a prostitute and fall in love with her, like Sampson did. Do we tell them that their influence brings an unhealthy atmosphere to the body, and tell them to straighten up or be amputated as members of the body?
When we shoot our wounded, we do not have anyone to write the book of Psalms or the Gospel of Mark. When we shoot our wounded, like the brothers of Joseph, we have no Judah in the Church and therefore no lineage of Christ. When will the church learn to have the patient, gentle, compassion with others and not give up on people in the church before God has not given up on them. Praise God that He has not given up on me, because I know I keep failing but He is still working on me and I am not yet what He wants me to be.
When the church is filled with wounded and spiritually sick members of the body, the body resembles a spiritually dead body because it takes time for the spiritually wounded to become healed. Then because the members of the body are normal sinful people this Why His arms aren't reaching; Why His hands aren't healing; Why His words aren't teaching; And why His feet aren't going.
amen Dan.
ReplyDelete...it appears that if we shoot the wounded, we are truly shooting ourselves.
Our discussion about being wounded made me think of what Jesus said: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this mean: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to all the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:12, 13).
ReplyDeleteThere is a story about a guy who got stabbed and staggered into a hospital. “Help,’ he gasped. The receptionist looked at him in horror. “You can’t be in here,” she said, “this is a sterile environment and we can’t have you bleeding all over the floors.”
Sadly, the body of Christ often has the same response to those whose sin is messy and inconvenient (as opposed to the neat and tidy sins that the church finds acceptable, things like superiority and judging).
I agree that church discipline is necessary, but there is more to discipline than disfellowshipping someone. Taking someone’s name off the books is a lot easier than loving them and praying for them and working with them.
It’s time the church remembered that is not a retreat for saints, but a hospital for those suffering from the effects of sin.