Don't shrivel up and die!

I was reading in The Age this morning about the challenges we have with successful organ donations here in Melbourne.  "Due to the current stress on the system and the risk of negative fallout from being unable to facilitate donation, it has been necessary to constrain some initiatives in order to prevent an even more rapid rise in the donation rate,''  Organs, when left apart from the body shrivel up and die.  Severed from the body without blood supply, organs die.  The "body-life" image that the apostle Paul uses illustrates the importance of diversity in ONENESS.  Rick Warren puts it this way, "Disconnected and cutoff from the lifeblood of a local body, you your spiritual life will wither and eventually cease to exist."  The Bible reminds us of how God has made us to function.  "In Christ, we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others." (Rom 12:5)  If you are part of the 40 Days of Purpose, that's our current memory verse - so learn it now.  Let the truth of God's word sink deep into your life - it's what I am doing. The reality "In Christ" is that I am intimately connected with my brothers and sisters.  It's not that I have done something significant to bring this about - rather, it is a consequence of what God has done "In Christ".  And it means I belong to my brothers and sisters.  That is an incredible statement to make and even far greater to internally own. 

Of necessity, this realisation MUST change the way I view and relate to, my brothers and sisters in Christ.  It can be no other way really; there can be no other outcome, other than an interdependent relationship within the organism called the local church and the world-wide church of God.  If we are serious about not simply reading the Bible as the word of God, but also applying it in our lives and relationships then we will be serious our place of belonging in the local fellowship of Gods people. 

First and foremost, we need to be serious about God's call upon us to value the local church and to commit ourselves to belonging to the fellowship.  I would go a little further, however.  Any wider ministry that a believer might have, should be seen as an extension to your connection with the local fellowship.  Paul's missionary journeys came out of the local fellowship - he was set apart and sent from them and he regularly returned to them.   When new local churches were commenced, elders were set in place so that leadership and teaching could be provided and that God's people in that place might live within the local expression of the body of Christ.  God is on a mission to redeem his people and he will do this first and foremost through his church. 

God has committed himself to build his church.  If local and global 'ministries' do not find their life blood in, extend from and feed into the local church a warning light must go on.  Equally, if individuals believe that 'dating' the church, hopping from here to there to hear different speakers and meet new people at the expense of stable, growing and maturing relationships in one local fellowship of Gods people, the same warning light must be recognised.  Almost without exception, when the Bible speaks about "the church" it is the local fellowship that is first and foremost being referred to.  That's were it starts and it's where each of us needs to live in, be sent out from and go back to.  It's how God intends for us to live life.