Working Together

This past week my cousins came to help build a tree house for the boys in our back yard.  After days of rain we finally received beautiful weather which left us only three days to complete the task.  We worked continually to get it done, the men did most of the labor but the women and children (when they were not playing) assisted as best they could.  It took all of us to make it happen.  

Even though the men did most of the heavy labor that doesn’t mean that the others were not important.  Any carpenter will tell you that working with an assistant makes a job go so much smoother.  Besides that, someone has to feed the workers!    As we were finishing up one evening it occurred to me how important all of us were to this project.  We functioned fluidly toward the end, knowing how to hold this board or measure that rail.  If we were to go on for days it would have been fun to see how much more we could have done now knowing just how to help each other.

It is like this in the body of Christ as well.  We all have different jobs and if we do them together, working toward one final goal we will successfully bless the world with the love of Jesus.  

1 Corinthians 12:12-27 says this:

¹² Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³ For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. ¹⁴ Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. 

 ¹⁵ Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. ¹⁶ And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸ But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. ¹⁹ If they were all one part, where would the body be? ²⁰ As it is, there are many parts, but one body. 

 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 put the body together, giving 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. 

 ²⁷ Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 

We are all needed in the body of Christ, we are all important.  The nursery worker is as important as the one leading praise and worship and the one teaching the children is as important as the one teaching the adults.  We all work together for the glory of Christ.  Blessing Him with our love for others and our willingness to do the small jobs in order to love our Big God!