Romans 12:4-5 Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

Being faced with what part of Romans 12 to write on puts me in quite a bind; it’s such a rich chapter! However, these two verses point up a perennial problem in the Church, and really in any organization. We stubbornly expect everyone to be like us, and we are somehow offended when they aren’t. God knew very well what He was doing when He made each human being unique. As I tell couples before I do their weddings, God puts us together because we need each other. Separately, we are incomplete. When husbands and wives have such trouble really grasping that, it’s no surprise that individual church members have difficulty with the idea! In the Church, we tend to ask, or at least desire, that everyone have the same ministry priorities as we do, and are sometimes even deeply hurt when that is not the case. It was very liberating to me to receive, and later teach, Don and Katie Fortune’s teaching on Motivational Gifts, based on Romans 12. They do a very good job of making the issue clear, which helps us accept one another and work with one another, cooperating instead of conflicting. However, I have found that there are quite a few people who, because of their gifting, personalities, and experience, have very little interest in even hearing about this issue, which leaves them in a state of constant friction with brothers and sisters in Christ. That is sad! Actually, it is our innate self-centeredness and pride that get in the way of understanding this issue. Sports coaches are fond of the truism that “There is no I in team.” We like to think we are the center of the universe, and that is simply not true for any of us.

It is perhaps fitting that I be trying to communicate this truth, because I have tended toward feeling like if I couldn’t do something, it didn’t need to be done. I have indeed been given a wide variety of abilities, but I am no more “complete” in myself than any of us is. I have taken a long time to accept emotionally that I genuinely need every member of the church, and not just as an audience. How self-centered is that! With age, some things come more easily, but I am forced to acknowledge that other things are no longer wise for me to attempt. I have also learned that I’m not smart, God is, and that has been very liberating. In that process I’ve come to understand how hurtful to this church it has been that I haven’t allowed others to express their gifting. As a pastor, I should be looking more to develop the gifts in others than express my own. We are indeed members – organs, limbs, etc. – of the same body, and I must never let that awareness slip from my mind.

Father, thank You for the tiredness I feel this morning, because it helps me be more aware of my dependence on You. I ask for wisdom in what to do myself and what to ask others to do. I ask also for wisdom in what to do when. There are a number of things that need to be done before this morning’s service, and I have no personal enthusiasm for any of them at the moment! Help me submit myself, body and soul, to You fully, so that You may do through me all that You desire to do that way, and through others what You desire to do through them, so that together we may accomplish Your purposes on Your schedule for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!