1 Corinthians 12:27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

At the moment I’m so consumed with the entirety of the message that it’s going to be hard to write on just part of it, but here we go. We all have a tendency to not see the forest for the trees, as the saying goes. Our perception is limited by definition, since we are finite, foolish beings. That’s why familiarity with the whole Bible is so important. We tend to get hung up on one part or another and fail to see how it all fits together in one unified message. That message is Christ, the Godhead become Emmanuel, so that in Him we might participate in the eternal life that is found no other way. As John pointed out, He is love, (1 John 4:8) but love that is so far beyond anything we could generate that He himself is the definition of it. We wind up with circular reasoning that way, and the only way out is by a revelation through His Spirit. Thankfully, He delights to give such revelations, so we can indeed draw close to Him. This 12^th chapter of 1 Corinthians is a detailed exposition of the reality that we are all different, but in Christ we are all one. That’s why I chose this verse to start with! However, that unity is impossible without love, as chapter 13 famously expresses. Much tragedy has occurred over the past 2000 years because of our human resistance to accepting this truth. Part of the problem is in our very limited understanding of love. We don’t understand that it is accepting without excusing, and at the same time it is correcting without rejecting. People are different, period. At the same time, people are valuable, period. As I wrote yesterday, it is our very differences that create the whole, and that is very good indeed. The only human being ever to have it all was Jesus, and none of us come up to His standard. However, as this verse says, we each reflect part of who He is, so together we are His Body.

This morning the Lord woke me up with a Japanese translation for a song that was written by Bob Gillman back in 1977 in England. The lyrics are very simple, but to my knowledge have never been put into Japanese before. “Bind us together Lord, bind us together with cords that cannot be broken. Bind us together Lord, bind us together; bind us together with love. There is only one God. There is only one King. There is only one Body, that is why I sing.” (© 1977, 1980 Thankyou Music) You can understand why I’m consumed with the total message! Now, I not only have to get this entered into my notation software and add the English and Japanese lyrics, I also need to write out the message notes that go with it! Over the past few weeks the Lord has really been working this theme into me, and I believe into this church as a whole. For much of my life I have been aware of the Family of God, and have long had the firm conviction that anyone who acknowledges Jesus as God become Man, the only Savior who died for our sins and rose again, is my sibling in Christ. At the same time, I have been very aware that siblings don’t always agree, and those disagreements can lead to bitter divisions. There are groups that I could never “join,” but at the same time, they are a part of me and I am a part of them, because Christ only has one Body. God will straighten it all out in heaven, and until then I am to operate in love, truth, and grace.

Father, thank You for this powerful reminder. Thank You for the song translation. Help me indeed record message notes that will be coherent and not confusing, so that Your truth may penetrate hearts and be manifested in lives, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!