Romans 12:5
"So in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others"
To whom do you belong?
American culture teaches us that dependency is a weakness and I agree with that sentiment. I believe there is something to the attitude of Paul who said "I praise The Lord that you were concerned with me but I was never in need. I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, for I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength."
When we have found right relationship with God, through Jesus's blood on the cross, we have found the only relationship we, as an individual, need. God tells us "even if your mother and father were to abandon you, I would never abandon you."
There is no human relationship that will ever be able to meet your needs to the extent that God is able. There is no love that will ever match the intensity and fullness of God's. No one will ever know and understand your true needs, and then be able to fulfill those needs, to the degree that your Father is able.
There is something to the attitude of our culture that shuns dependency on others and strives to be self sufficient. When this attitude is taken apart from a relationship with Christ, though, it manifests in prideful ignorance. Someone without a relationship with God is in need. Their self is not sufficient. Someone who denies help in this scenario is a complete fool, akin to a hungry person rejecting food, whereas someone who has been born again is able to say, like Jesus, "I have food that you know nothing of".
When viewed through the eyes of someone who does not know God, Paul's statement may seem arogant. Here other people are, offering help and comfort, and Paul has the nerve to say "I don't need anything." Paul was not dealing with the flu... He was writing from a roman prison, wrongly imprisoned and awaiting judgment to see whether he would be executed or not... In a roman prison he was not provided food or clothing. He was completely dependent, in terms of human needs, on the church to provide these things. How deluded and arrogant would he have seemed to someone who did not know the reality of the provisions and sustainment that God provides to His children? Yet, Paul truly lacked nothing. Even if he remained naked and hungry, he could say, with full honesty, "I have food and clothing,".
Yes, there is a sufficency that comes with a relationship with God in which you, as an individual, do not need any other person...
Yet, the same man who wrote "I need nothing", wrote that he belonged, as a member, to a body. Further he said, "the eye in this body cannot say to the hand, 'I don't need you!' and the head cannot say to the feet, 'I don't need you!'"
I believe that we, as a country, at one point understood the paradox of being completely sufficent, even in the most abismal circumstance, yet at the same time being dependent to the degree that the lungs are dependent on the heart and vice-versa.
Like many other qualities that make Americans unique, when seperated from the foundation, which is Christ Himself, these qualities stop being something that build and instead tear down and degrade. Whereas once we were a people who pioneered and brought forth a new system that captivated and changed the world, the very qualities that drove these endeavors, separated from the guardrails of God's instruction and wisdom, have become the wedge that threatens to divide and destroy us.
Paul, when speaking on the paradox of dependency on God alone, yet a member, indivisible and wholly dependent on the body as a whole, explained how to live rightly. He broke down "a way of life that is best of all."
He painted a picture of a man, a man that anyone with eyes would call a "successful man". A man who spoke all languages and could communicate with anyone. A man who possesses all knowledge and wisdom and could tell the future. A man with determination so great that he could literally move mountains. A man who gives everything he owns, in order to help the poor, even sacrificing his own body for others...
He said that a man like this could certainly boast in his actions... Yet if he did not have love, would have accomplished nothing.
He said that he would be nothing.
This unloving man who, by all measures of earthly morality, is the epitome of success and worthy of the highest praise, surely would not need fundraisers or donations. He would be one who "pulled himself up by the bootstraps", never looking for a handout. He would personify, to the highest degree, the American spirit.
Yet he would, in the end, have accomplished nothing.
This man, who, belonging to no one, though he set out to help everyone, would have done nothing whatsoever but make noise and move a lot.
Love, being a foreign concept, would not have its effect.
True love, the force which causes us to be willing to lay down our very life for another, would have not worked in this mans life, causing him to fall into place, not as ruler and hero, but as member.
Jesus called us "gods", (Psalm 82:6) in that, being sons of the true God, we, as individuals, have a power that is unimaginable. He has given us dominion over the earth and everything on it. A single individual is capable of accomplishing what Paul described and we have seen it...
Hitler moved mountains, almost conquering the world! He communicated in a way that reached more than just his own citizens. He showed wisdom by his success. Viewed through the eyes of a sympathizer, he gave everything, even his own life, to the cause.
Yet he did not have love.
He did not have that force that acts as a guardrail, directing all of this awesome and terrifying power.
Separating himself from the body, he rose to become a ruler or a hero. Refusing to be a member, these attributes, which could have benefited the whole, became the very force that destroyed it.
Though speaking in many languages, he became a clashing gong. Though moving mountains, he only created a mess that needed to be cleaned. Though striving to be everything he became nothing, taking the lowest name of which some still shudder when using.
I know of a man, though, who was all-powerful and all-loving.
I know of a man who. though He was God, did not think of equality with God as something to be clung to but instead, humbled himself to the position of a slave, even being willing to die a criminals death on a cross.
A man who, carrying out the acts that this world holds to the highest esteem, allowed love to accomplish its power guiding purpose, causing Him, not to separate Himself, but bind Himself, as member, to the body.
A man whos words not only reached the ears of all people, but their hearts also. Who, when moving mountains, moved the correct ones into the correct place. A man whos sacrifice was deemed worthy not only to save the life of one person, but every person.
Though belonging to no one, being fully sufficient in God, in all things, belonged to one body. Not counting Himself as separate, but in submission, moving as a part of a whole, is now able to boast and be boasted of.
He has become the judgment of the world and His name has been lifted above every other, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue confess, that Christ is Lord.
He lived "a way of life that is best of all".
How many of us, on our way to work, where we go to lay down our lives for our family and our community, honk at someone for going too slow?