A Broken Body

Have you ever had a cold?  I'm guessing most of you say yes.  I don't know about you all, but when I have a cold my whole body is affected by it.  Not only do I have a runny nose and a headache, but my whole body just feels drowsy and even my stomach doesn't feel well.  What a terrible feeling.  This is probably why the "common cold" is one of the most dreaded things to catch...and there is no over the counter cure for it.  Now, let's transition that to looking at a letter Paul writes to the church in Corinthia.  He says  in 1 Corinthians 12:25-27, "So there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.  If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.  Now you are the body of Christ, and each of you is a part of it."

Lately, my heart is truly hurting for our broken body.  Paul straight up says,  "YOU are the body."  We often like to hear that but I don't think we are taking it seriously.  How often to we let petty things scar the body?  We look to our own selfishness as to why "people aren't doing this for me," or "i can't believe they did that to me" or "I can't believe so and so did this, I never would...." The common words in these complaints are "me" and "I."  What are we doing?  It makes me so sad to think that the body is hurting because of us being blinded by our selfishness.  I know that I am saying "us" and some of you are thinking, "I never do that."  If that is how you feel, then that is great. I just think that I feel like this is something I have seen in my own life and the people around me.  I have seen the bad effects it has on a church and how it stops the work of God being done.  What if we as a church, as one body began to rejoice with one anther and suffer in one another's pain because we love our brothers and sisters so much that we feel for them?  What if we looked at the Jesus in our brothers and sisters rather than focusing so hard on their inperfections?  I believe that if we did, we would have a beautifully unified body.

Now the only way to truly get over the common cold is by allowing time for it get better, and giving yourself some tender, love and care.  I believe for our body to be healed of the hurts we have caused one another it requires the same.  It may take some time for the scars of gossiping, lying or judging to be healed.  It will require giving us truly loving and caring for one another in a Christ love and believing He can restore any hurt, any friendship.  It takes effort.  It takes forgiving one another.  

I know that this may have seemed a bit like a "soapbox" and I am not one who tends to pour out frustrations through blogs or any other method.  I just want us to take a good look at our body of Christ and see where we need to heal some friendships or forgive in order for the body to operate as one body, united in Christ.