Support Your Local Church By Supporting the Body of Christ (avoid divisions)

• ⁴For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, ⁵ so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. ⁶ Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; ⁷ if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; ⁸ the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. (Romans 12:4-8) [also see 1 Cor 12:14-30]

It is natural and good for finite saints like us to be invested in a local body of believers.  Whether that is a church or even group of partner churches.  Just as it is likewise natural and good for us to be invested in the care of our own single physical body God has given us to feed and maintain.

It is of great consideration and concern, however, when our fellowship with the global body (those outside of our local churches) is seen as a threat such that we smother, truncated, or cut it off because of our zeal for that local church.

It is not the local body that is "one body".  That view is far, far too narrow.  The one body spoken of in Scripture, we absolutely must not forget, is in fact not local but global.  The body of Christ is the global body of Christ outside your district, city, state, country, and all around the word.  And, it includes the local church we are able to be a part of.

To cut off our fellowship among those not considered part of our local church (those who are in fact a part of the global body), for threat of them stealing us away from the local body... is a cancerous thought, which itself needs cut off.

This kind of non-Biblical thinking will only isolate us from the actual body of Christ. We need to love the entire body.

What if I say, "I alone am the body of Christ."?  This most offensive statement is easily rejected when I have excluded everyone but myself from the body.  On an individual level it is clear, but is more subtly accepted on the level of the local church we become invested in.  How else have we become so divided as a body in this present age, with so many denominations, groups, programs of various churches within a few blocks of one another?

The idea that fellowship outside of our local church is a divisive threat to our local church, is itself a divisive thought.

Do we often feel as though we cannot associate with others outside our local church for very long?  Do we move on quickly and push on by others of another church, for fear we will sway allegiance or would be disloyal to our local church?--it shouldn't be so.  Do we end relationships with those outside our local church (or within) because we fear someone is walking a contrary path by fellowshipping outside of our local church?  Do we shun or raise concern when someone in our local church we may know--having not shown any concern for anything anti-Gospel--is often involved with another church body's members?  Do we fear if they continue on their current path that we might lose them?  Then we ourselves are in danger of being the ones who are alienating the Body of Christ--not them.

In our zeal for our local church we may be the ones isolating ourselves outside of functioning in the Body of Christ (if we have not already).

Do we want to support our local church?  Good!  Do not seek to isolate yourself from the Body of Christ.  In the name of supporting that local church, do not neglect the body of Christ, which is beyond your neighborhood, city, state, or zip.  It is global.  Let's not feel odd when associating with those outside our local church.  Do not consider ourselves (or others) as subverting authority or the calling of God.  If it is the body of Christ then it is the body of Christ.  Support your local church by supporting the global body of Christ.

• But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. ² I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, ³ for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? ⁴ For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? ⁵ What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. ⁶ I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. ⁷ So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. ⁸ He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. ⁹ For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. (1 Cor 3:1-9)

Is God a Tyrant for Commanding Worship?

I am the Lord; that is my name;

my glory I give to no other,

nor my praise to carved idols

(Isaiah 42:8)

Why is God so unwilling to share glory with another?  Why would God many times and places, instruct man to worship Him alone? Look up at the heavens, and consider the work of His fingers.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? (Psalm 8:3-4 ESV)

Consider that there are trillions of stars in the known universe.  These stars are light years apart and spread throughout the universe.  Some stars known as "Hypergiants", are 3,600 times the diameter of our Sun.  To reiterate--there are trillions of stars, light years apart, and many of them dwarf the Sun or Earth.  God placed them all with His fingers.

We understand also that the stars are relatively young.  That is, the stars were created along with man.  So the command to worship Him alone is very old--before the stars and before mankind--before we were, God was.  So consider this command to worship Him, as an intervention in our futility.  Long before mankind understood anything about the vastness of the stars beyond a pretty twinkle in the sky, the command went out before mankind to worship Him and no other.

When we observe honestly the work of His fingers, what we find in this command to worship Him alone, is MERCY.

This command was not just the shouting of a worship hungry God, or the tirades of a glory hound drunk with power--He is the God who predates such foolish thoughts about Him.  He is the God Who places the trillions of stars in all of their vastness and massiveness, with His fingers; His fingers!  And, in His mercy, He has passed along the instruction and information--this command--"Worship Me alone."

He is mindful of you.

Understand the unwavering position of God to not share glory with another, is GENEROSITY.

In this command, God is no glory hound.  There is simply nothing else worthy in all of the universe, or without.  God knows this, and He wants us to know it.  God has been mindful of us in telling us this.  In our utter feebleness He has intervened in our hopeless state and darkened futile minds, telling us, "Here I am!  Worship Me alone!  I alone am worthy of all of your worship!  I will share glory with no other!"

Obey this command... receive His mercy...

Boring Bible?

In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, by descent a Mede, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans— in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years. (‭Daniel‬ ‭9‬:‭1-2‬ ESV)

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I think it is a pretty fair thing to say that Daniel was a pretty studious Scripture reader, and had read Jeremiah's words end to end multiple before.  But in chapter 9 of Daniel we see that he perceives something new for the first time ever. I wonder if maybe it wasn't simply a matter of reading it enough times that he finally broke through and perceived it (though maybe there is a case for that?), but simply the Lord's timing for him to perceive it.

Do you read the Bible and sometimes feel like you read something new?  It was there all along and you read it before, but you just never perceived it until now and it is new to you for the first time.  It is the fact it was there all along that makes it even more glorious.  Within the context of God's Word, of course, you discovered something new.  That is one benefit of serving the Living God.  How great is that, really? The Bible can never be boring. Only we are the ones who are boring when we approach the Bible boringly.

He has given us all the opportunity to share in the glory of kings.

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It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out. (‭Proverbs‬ ‭25‬:‭2‬ ESV)