(Detour) WHY CHURCH - 3

I am quite sick and am currently medicated, so I hope these thoughts make sense. We are now to our third article on Why Church? We have discussed that gathering with other believers is Commanded, and that it is Hard to remain faithful without regularly being with and living alongside other Christians.

Thirdly, regularly being with the church is important because it helps you Realize your Identity.

A group of animals got together to make a school. There was a rabbit, a duck, a squirrel and a bird. They were going to create a curriculum that brought up the perfect animals, so they would all take all of the classes. The rabbit insisted that running be in the school’s curriculum. The duck insisted on swimming. The squirrel insisted on tree climbing. The bird insisted that flying be included. So they began their school.

The Duck was doing amazing at swimming, but he was at the bottom of the class at running. So the duck stayed late every day to practice running until eventually he had severely damaged his webbed feet until he was a sub-par swimmer. The Rabbit was straight killing it when it came to running, he had no problem at all with that class; however, when it came to tree climbing, he wasn’t so proficient. He would try and try to climb the tree, but he would keep falling back and hitting himself on the head, until he had had so many concussions that he couldn't even run well anymore. The squirrel was doing GREAT at tree climbing, but he kept jumping out of the tree, hoping to fly, only to fall to his injury to the ground; eventually, he could barely climb anymore. The bird had an easy A+ in flying, but whenever he tried to climb the trees, he kept damaging his wings until he couldn't fly anymore.

There is a misconception in the world that the church and Christianity demand that you be one specific kind of person, that in order to be part of the church you must give up your identity and who you are. There is the idea that the church takes rabbits and tries to make them climb trees, or takes squirrels and tries to make them fly, but this was never the intention of Christ.

 (I do think that many churches today are making this mistake, trying to force all of God’s children into one mold; however, that has never been the biblical model of the church.)

On the contrary, the church is here to help you Realize your identity, not lose it.

For the body does not consist of one member but of many. ¹⁵ If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁶ And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?¹⁸ But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. ¹⁹ If all were a single member, where would the body be? ²⁰ As it is, there are many parts,^[e] yet one body.

²¹ The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”

1 Corinthians 12:14-22

The Bible teaches throughout its pages that we are made differently and encouraged by God and each other to be who God has made us to be. What can be more freeing than that! Here is the deal: God has made some of us hands, some of us mouths, some feet, and those body parts are precisely what God intends for us to be.

GOD WANTS YOU TO BE WHAT HE HAS MADE YOU TO BE! HE WANTS YOU TO DO WHAT HE HAS GIFTED YOU TO DO! HALLELUJAH! 

If a hand is lying on the ground, what good is that hand? It is useless, constantly wondering what it is good for, what it was made for, why it exists. Its life makes no sense. But if that hand is picked up and placed onto a body, things start to make sense. The hand starts to realize what it was made for, how gifted it really is, the reason for its very existence.

We are the church, we are the body, come and find your place in it. We do not want to take away your identity and your freedom, we want to help you discover who you really are, and who you were made to be.

Grace and Peace