Living Stones

Read: Romans 12

We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other. Romans 12:5

IN WORD

“To each his own.” “You’ll have to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.” “Whatever I do on my own time is none of your business.” These are just some of the many mantras of an individualistic age. They have elements of truth; we are individually responsible for our own actions and rightfully free from the judgments of others. But in spite of all our individualism, Scripture calls us members of one body, all interdependent and functioning as a whole. While we seek independence, God has designed us to depend on Him, often through His work in others. He is building a temple for His presence, and it has many stones.

Paul expressed that thought in Ephesians, where the body of Christ is actually a temple for God, and we are each vital members. And it’s true: Unless a person has every spiritual gift and every experience anyone could ever have with God, he or she needs what God is imparting through other believers. If we want to know Him as thoroughly as possible, and He is an infinite God, we will have to be joined with multitudes through whom He is doing something different than what He has done in us. That’s the only way to begin to see the fullness of His work on earth.

IN DEED

In this Kingdom revolution, we cannot function as isolated individuals, each with our own private Holy Spirit. Yes, we have a personal relationship with Him at a deeply intimate level, but we also can’t get everything He offers on our own. We need the gifts of others, and they need ours. Their strength fuels our strength, and vice versa. No human being experiences God comprehensively. And no revolution succeeds if every participant is doing his or her own thing apart from the others. We need each other to experience God; and we need each other to grow His Kingdom. Only in unity is a fragmented world truly changed.

ADDITIONAL READING: Ephesians 2:19-22; 4:1-6

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

JOHN DONNE