The Body in Action

What a blessing it was this week to see "the body", the members of Temecula Hills Christian Fellowship, respond spontaneously to the needs of one of its members.

Speaking of the Body, Paul wrote, "if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it" (1 Cor 12:26). Think about the analogy. If any part of our physical body receives a severe blow, the rest of our body does not sit back and wonder whether or not it should feel any pain or participate in this event... it just instantly hurts! And we know that biologically the body responds by rushing resources to the source of the injury to shore up the bodies defenses.

That's what I witnessed on Saturday. Members of our body, the Smith family, received a sudden and traumatic blow with the tragic death of Haviland sr. And what did the rest of the body do? Rallied instantly to their side. Surrounded them with resources of love, care, concern, and material goods.

We didn't need to form a Care Committee. No one needed to be encouraged to obey the "one another" commands of scripture. There was no delay while we assigned responsibility. People just reacted spontaneously, because they were truly suffering along with Wendy, Haviland jr, and Blake. Thats what it means to be a community of believers, to be members together of Christ's Body, the local Church (Rom 12:5; 1 Cor 12:27; Eph 4:25).