My wife and I love the show “Get Out Alive” with Bear Grylls. It is a reality show about a large group broken into two person teams seeing who can make it through different intense survival challenges. In the most recent episode one of the challenges was that one team member had to go down into a crevasse to retrieve some food. It was a harrowing, slippery climb. The guy who volunteered to go had recently badly injured his knee, and he has really been struggling. Though he ultimately accomplished the task, it took him a long time; he really struggled. When asked about it, he said that he really wanted to prove to himself that he could do it. He put the whole team at risk and wasted valuable time for his own personal satisfaction . There is a similar dangerous mindset in Christian circles. Everything is not about you. You are part of a whole. God is working through you, yes, but within the larger framework of the body of Christ. Anytime you focus on yourself and insist on doing something yourself when someone else is more capable or better suited, that is selfish, wrong, and…well, kind of dumb. Paul uses the analogy of a body here. He does not extend the metaphor in this passage, but he uses the same analogy of the church as a body in 1 Corinthians 12. There, he says we are all parts of a body. If everyone were an eye, we could see but go nowhere. If we were all feet, we would not know where to go because we couldn’t see. A body needs hands, feet, internal organs, sensory organs, etc. Find your role in the church and be great at it. We should always be willing to help with something that is “not our thing” (ever put a pencil in your mouth when your hands were full?), but when it is time to write, the pencil goes in your hand. Do not think too highly of yourself. When it is your time, do your thing. When it is someone else’s turn, be thankful they are on your team, and they are great at what they do. We are all in this life together. We cannot go it alone. Allow other believers to use their gifts, strengths, and opportunities to help you, and be ready to return the favor. Romans 12:3-5 3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, 5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Aug 2013 07:17:28 +0000
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