Lent 2014, Day 13: ONE body

Tonight we discussed the passage in 1 Corinthians 12 that describes the importance of each part of the body. Our youth pastor, John, showed a clip from “Here Comes the Boom!” where Kevin James' character teaches his class about how a system heals itself. He described how an idle cell can bring down the whole system, but once a cell gets in motion, it starts a chain reaction where all the cells begin to bounce off each other. Once they get into a rhythm and work together, they can heal the entire system. This is very much like the body of Christ! As part of the body we can either build up or tear down the system; we can either work with the other members of the body and accomplish great things, or become lethargic and unresponsive and create a handicap. The Bible tells us to support and encourage each other as we are all invaluable – there is no more honorable or more useful part of the body over another, each part is needed and useful. And John pointed out that it is important that we are open and vulnerable with each other. In this he referenced verse 26, which states, “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” This means we are called to lean on each other, and, which is often more difficult, to allow others to lean on us. We are to go to those suffering and build them up, but do we? How often do we just turn the other way? And how often do we find someone who shares our faith and ask them to pray for us when we're struggling ourselves? Don't we just bottle it up so we're not burdening anyone with our own problems...