20070513
“So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them.” (Gen. 1:27). The LORD made each person perfect with every functioning part to do its specific task. Each body part has a role to play and to enable the whole person to function the way he was created. God the Creator established the protocol. He predetermined the role for each part. He “predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory” (Eph. 1:11-12). So what shall we say, then? Should we not heed the intent and the design of the Creator?
The Apostle Paul inserted this very apt analogy of the one body and its many parts into his teachings on the gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12). Paul visually portrayed the importance of every spiritual gift, the necessity for interdependence on one another, the consideration of the stronger for the weaker and the honour for the less honourable. The thread of Paul’s argument is that every believer with his/her gift/s from the Holy Spirit must see himself/herself as fitting into the whole fabric of God’s masterpiece. Are we not being indifferent to the gift when we do not exercise it and not esteeming its true worth? Every gift given is precious. By exercising our God-given gift and effectively engaging in the role that God has ordained, we declare ourselves a bona fide part of Christ’s Body.
The Apostle Paul did not just stop here; he sounded the alarm bells at the same time. He empathetically reminded us that in the midst of appreciating and exercising the spiritual gifts, there are pitfalls. There is none less worthy or some more superior. Rather we are to honour, to respect, to encourage and to exalt the other. We are to “do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.” (Phil. 2:3). Paul surmised with this glorious truth found in 1 Cor. 12:18: “But in fact GOD has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be”. It is not what we do, not what we deserve, not what we achieve but rather by God’s grace, He places us where we are, gives us what we have, to do what He purposes – that we might be for the praise of His glory. All praise and glory be to God – the Creator!
