Title: No Rejection Allowed/ Topic: Healthy Church Life

Today's Reading: Job 37; Job 38; 1 Corinthians 12

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12:21-26
21 The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Observation: Paul is making an analogy between the human body and the Body of Christ. Just as the human body is made up of many parts, and all are needed for good health, so is the Church. If a human body starts rejecting its organs, it will become either weak or dead. And just as the human body has parts that remain covered (with skin or with clothing), so the Church has parts that may not be “presentable” but they are still necessary.

Application: Often people come into churches that are hurting or damaged. Just as the human body heals itself, so the Church is meant to heal its broken members. Sometimes we want to reject certain persons that come into the church because their personalities are annoying to us. They talk too much or too little, they don't dress appropriately or they joke or speak in ways we don't like, they are too loud or too snooty to suit us. But just as the human body gets sick or dies if it rejects its organs, so the church dies if we reject any part. The parts we consider “unpresentable” are necessary for us to be perfected in love, humility, kindness and tolerance (the right kind, not the kind that accepts any behavior or philosophy). If someone is annoying to me, I am the one who needs to change and grow. I also have the responsibility through speaking the truth in love to help them grow. I can't do that if I'm judging them in a negative way. There is no rejection allowed in the Body of Christ unless it is to cut out a diseased part (someone who is unrepentant of of sin and in rebellion to God).

Prayer: Father, help us to have the correct view of our brothers and sisters in the Church. Instead of being critical of others that we don't like for some reason, may we see them as a gift to help us become more loving, kind and more like You. Those that we are naturally drawn to may spur us to growth in certain ways but there is a kind of growth that can only come to us when we are challenged to love and accept those that are very different from us. Help us to be healthy by not rejecting our own organs that You have placed in our Body.
This I pray in Jesus' name, Amen.