Living This Life Part 2

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. Romans 12:3-5 ( NIV )

I wrote last time about how the first step in living this life as a follower of Jesus begins with our relationship to God and how Jesus gave us a tremendous example of what that relationship looks like. Paul, in extreme language, described it as a ‘living sacrifice.’ Many people stop at this point either because it’s more than they want to step into, or because they

think that God is all they need and as long as they are good with God, then they’re good to go. Even in some of the songs we sing, this mentality is reinforced. We sing, “All I need is You” or “You are my everything.” I understand the poetic beauty and resonance of these words, and even love to sing them, but to think that we only need God and nothing else is just not accurate, even as Paul states in these verses. We who are many, form one body, and we belong to one another. What Paul is describing here is the church.

Church

The word ‘Church’ is one that stirs up a wide range of thoughts and emotions. For some good, others bad and for many, I believe, misunderstood. When the word ‘Church’ is mentioned in scripture, it does not mean a place or a building where you go to worship; it is referring to the people who follow Christ all over the world. They ARE the church, Christ’s body, as Paul states, active in this world. And it’s

important to realize that we were designed by God for this community and that it’s an important and necessary part of living this life.

In the Beginning

In Genesis, at the very beginning, God had created paradise and placed Adam in the middle of the garden. They walked in perfect relationship with each other before the fall and God at this time said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” (Genesis 2) Who else would dare to say “it is not good” in a situation where it is just you and God in perfect harmony? But God saw that there was still a need in Adam, the need not for more of God, but for someone else.

Now, when God created Eve, He didn’t just create a companion for Adam, He created family and larger still, He created community. The implications go much further than just the two of them. We can still see the gravity towards community in life all around us. We see it at sporting events as we wear our team colors and give high fives to the people around us we’ve never met as our team scores, at concerts or parties. Some will even be beaten half to death just so they can be accepted as a member of a particular gang. And though some of our choices aren’t always healthy, they are confirming what God saw there in the beginning, the need to be with others.

Jesus brought depth to this, and again (or should I say of course) in an extreme way. There was a crowd sitting around Jesus and someone said, “Your mother and your brothers are outside asking for you.” Jesus replied, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” Then he looked at those around him and said, “Look, these are my mother and brothers. Anyone who does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3:32-35 NLT). Jesus just took the closest circle that we have (family), and made it a whole lot bigger. Paul continues here in Romans with the attitude we should have toward each other, not thinking too highly of ourselves, recognizing our differences, as well as our dependency. Even as has been said, “If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go with others.”

This love for others was Jesus’ mark and example and His disciples became known because of it. The world saw how Jesus’ followers lived and called them, “Christians”. Today we call ourselves Christians and the world sees how we live and calls us hypocrites, because what they see so many times doesn’t match who Christ is.

I believe that our communities of worship would not be able to contain all the people that would come if we loved and cared for them as we should. It was how Jesus said people would know that we are His followers, by our love for one another. The importance of being connected to others is a vital part of living this life. Loving God includes loving others (1 John 3).

After all …we are the church.