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| Volume 21 Number 4 April 2019 | Page 13 |
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| Volume 21 Number 4 April 2019 | Page 13 |
Clarence Lavender
In the September 28, 1992 edition of Time magazine, there is an excellent article entitled, “The Glue of Life,” written by Dick Thompson (62-63). The article is about cell structure adhesiveness. Thompson says:
If living cells didn’t have a fondness for sticking together, we would all be colorful gobs of jelly oozing all over the floor. Fortunately, cells hold to a basic biological premise that stickiness is desirable for form and essential for function. They violate this premise at our peril. When cells become either too sticky or too slippery, arteries can get clogged, cancer cells can skate around the body, and inflammation can turn subversive. Researchers have long believed that if they could somehow manipulate stickiness, they would have a formidable new set of tools for healing.
After reading the whole article, I thought how marvelously made the human body really is. Sins of all kind, have no doubt, brought defection to the physical body, for God did not make it that way. What He made was good. “And God saw every thing that he made, and behold, it was very good…“ (Genesis 1:30).
I thought also of the unity of the spiritual body, the church. “And he is the head of the body, the church…” (Colossians 1:18). There is a “stickiness” that must continually permeate it, if it is to maintain its “form” and “function” as the Bible teaches. Jesus prayed, “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through the word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one” (John 17:20-22).
As members of the body of Christ, there has been placed on us the responsibility, obligation or “stickiness” to keep the unity of the faith! Paul said, “Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3). “Keep” and “endeavoring” in the passage mean to “keep by guarding, to guard by exercising watchful care, make haste, do one’s best.” “Peace” means “that which is bound together.” We must exercise watchful care to maintain our binding. When we do not do our best, problems arise in the spiritual body, and it suffers untold harm.
Just as in the physical body, cells can become “too sticky” or “too slippery”; the spiritual body must avoid extremism. Neither being religiously ultraconservative nor liberal benefits the spiritual body. Our spiritual premise to “stickiness” or unity must be based on our authority, the Bible (2 Timothy 3:16-17; Jude 3; 2 John 9-11). It alone is our “glue of life” (John 10:10).
Brethren, if we are to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, then we as individuals must continue to accept our responsibility. Such responsibility involves attendance at every service, teaching our neighbor the Gospel, giving as we have prospered and utilizing our every talent for God. The basis for our action is love for God and each other. Paul said:
But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ; For whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. (Ephesians 4:15-16)
In preparing ourselves for eternity in this vale for soul making, there must be “adhesion,” “stickiness” and genuine love for each other in the church. Unity alone does not come by accident in either the physical or the spiritual body. It takes each member doing its respective part (Ephesians 4:16).
He Who Lacks These Things
Therman Hodge
“For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins” (2 Peter 1:8-9 NKJV). We see two different Christians here: one who possesses these Christian qualities and is increasing in them and the other who lacks these Christian qualities. Why do some Christians not increase in these Christian qualities?
They have forgotten that they have been cleansed from their old sins. The main reason that some Christians’ spiritual lives fall apart is they have forgotten that they have been cleansed from their old sins. They have forgotten that:
To forget is to die spiritually.
Some Christians are blind and cannot see far. When we do not possess the Christian qualities of 2 Peter 1 in increasing measure, we cannot see far; we are spiritually blind. Yes, we are blind, and cannot see:
A good example of spiritual blindness is the church at Laodicea (Revelation 3:14-17).
God help us never to forget that we have been cleansed from our old sins. If we are to see beyond this life and its troubles to the mansions of Heaven, we must possess these Christian qualifications. “But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love” (2 Peter 1:5-7).