January 24
1 CORINTHIANS 12:27
There are different members in different places with different purposes: each distinctive but each working together, united beneath the same great Purpose and Intention of God, working under the direction of the Head like a great spiritual symphony.
“God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased.” (1 Corinthians 12:18). This results in a spiritual oneness and unity (for better or worse) so that “if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26). Everything you do (or do not do) as a member of the Body of Christ affects all the other members. No one is an island. The Difficult Path may be lonely at times, but we are never truly alone.
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Last night I came close to walking away from that lonely path. I am not sure how I was going to do that. I had been praying for an acquaintance and wonder if I was attacked spiritually. It suddenly seemed dangerous to have no connection to the body
I just found myself singing, Trust and Obey so I keep walking this lonely path.
Eve-Loraine, there is a beautiful story behind the song Trust & Obey. It’s my favorite also and I woke up with in my heart this week. It stayed with me all day so I decided to look into the history. It was written as a testament to one mans simple statement of faith. His name is unknown but we are still singing of his faithfulness 127 years later! God bless your faithfulness also.
Thank you Faye. I don’t even remember writing that Last year but it is good to have a reminder of Trust and Obey. At the moment I am singing ‘though none go with me I still will follow’. We used to sing it with gay abandon never dreaming it would come to pass. I realise that I wouldn’t be writing here if I had face to face fellowship or even real people to talk with.
I Like that –“A spiritual Symphony.” It is true each member/part of the Body is like notes or instruments….without each note playing their part or instrument we wouldn’t have that harmonious arrangement whether in music or in the Body.
We are His fulness…a head without a body is not full expression of that head. We are His Body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all. We are to be filled with Him so that there can be a full expression of Him. When there is an increase of Him in us there is a fuller expression of the Head. Each of us in part as a part of His Body (each joint) supplies a measure of Him just as you explained in your analogy of the symphony needing each note of music or each individual instument coming together to make our symphony complete. Love it!
We are a part of that body even if we never see the other members. All we have to worry about is being attached to the head and obeying His voice.
I have been on the outside looking in during my whole Christian life partly because the Lord has called me to be unmarried, so it has always been that I didn’t fit in because the Church isn’t set up for single people and my calling has had me in the body as it has pleased my Father but the leadership hasn’t embraced me because of my teachings about the “system Church” and it’s foundation which is not scriptural. I have to say that now more than ever before, I am isolated but because of your devotional a week or so ago on the “Privilege of Patmos” I am hopeful of finishing my course. The following is a title of one of my teachings: “The Church; Organization or organism which is it”?
How timely this devotional today is! In an hour from now I meet with 2 fellow Christians. It is a new venture….strangely I was praying that our fellowship would have a feeling of synergy and a sense of real connectedness during our time together.Then I heard your EMail come through! How encouraged I am feeling right now….Thankyou Chip for your day by day obedience to the work God has called you to.
I have been concerned about conditions in the world for the young generations we are leaving behind. ..I was bemoaning how they surely will fall away without us ‘elders’ to guide them…then I heard what the Lord said to ELIJAH (my paraphrase): Brenda, don’t think you’ve got it all…I still have my Remnant like I always have and always will! Stop whining at the state of things you see. Things aren’ t over till I say they are over…
Being alone, like Elijah often was, can cause our thoughts to work overtime. Yet, while we are alone, we must remember, God has his ‘lonely ones’ all over the world that are standing True in Him and that ‘Have not bowed their knee to Baal!’ .
Brenda Brown
This message is so beautiful and powerful, but unfortunately it isn’t working in the church at large, many little cliches in the body and as one of the people mentioned here, single people are not really counted for, it is just a corporation that wants the money and wants converts, but not willing to help when people are struggling, thanks Chip, the body of Christ at large needs your message
ah! I am married, been married many years, and now elderly and
attending a church,, it is not only unmarried people who can feel unwanted
being elderly, many of us are no longer wanted.
good to read your comments here,, churches here are so often not His Church.
How I NEVER fail to be amazed at how the Holy Spirit works! GOD IS AMAZING! He supplies our need. When we are hungry, He feeds us. When He are thirsty, He gives us living water. When we are weary, He strengthens us. When we are alone, He comforts and strengthens us, and sends the Body of Christ to wrap THEIR love, empathy and compassion around us….straight from the heart of our Father Himself. And I praise God for our precious brother Chip, who reaches SO many who are walking a lonely path.
I am always comforted by Christ’s own walk. So often He was “alone” but always had the love of His Father to strengthen and keep Him while He was misunderstood and hated, scorned and scoffed at, ridiculed and persecuted. And Paul…..he also walked a lonely path, but was never alone. He not only had the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, a faith that was impregnable, and there was also a thread of support, across the great distances he had to go, from the other growing members of the body of Christ. The things of the spirit are not confined by time and matter – distance never being a constraint, but the God’s ministering to each other as led by the Spirit is a bond that can be greater than that of our blood relatives. (Matt.19:29) He knows our needs…..and if I am the little “pinkie” – I KNOW that there are 3 other fingers, a thumb, a hand and a whole arm to help me, and I them, when we are obeying the commands of the Head. Hallelujah! 🙂
This text awakens in me so many memories and contradictory feelings… perhaps I have known only false brothers… (in local churches).
You know…. Those who say,”It’s well done for you; you reap what you have sown; I did what I owe, so what happens to you is only for you; you must choose, live or die but…” I’d better not repeat what I’ve been told by « brothers or sisters »… but:
« Everything you do (or do not do) as a member of the Body of Christ affects all the other members. No one is an island. »
Well, It seems to be light years away from current thinking here… that it make me sad…
But to imagine that « The Difficult Path may be lonely at times, but we are never truly alone. » It gives me a bit of comfort.
Thank you