Life On The Highest Plane
We have given at least a partial diagnosis of the serious malady from which the body of Christ suffers today and its resultant weakness. But is there no cure? Is Christ the Head nonplussed before these awful maladjustments within His own body? Does He stand impotent before hindering dislocations? A thousand times no!
Let us remind ourselves again and again that the true Church, the body of Christ, is of divine construction. God is the architect; the Church is His wondrous workmanship; God Himself "fitly framed together" the parts that make up His holy temple; He "knits together" the living members of the body of Christ. Then He is amply able to readjust any dislocated part of this wondrous organism.
May we suggest what seems to be the Scriptural cure for these manifold dissensions within the body of Christ. It reaches to the very seat of the trouble and affects a double cure, one both of mind and of heart. If Christians were thinking rightly and loving purely every dislocation would be corrected. The whole Church needs a fresh immersion into the very mind of Christ and a new baptism of His love. This double cure was the Apostle Paul's unfailing prescription for the disease of division.
Over and over again he beseeches the Christians under his care to be of one mind. It is possible for differences in opinion, judgment and conviction to be adjusted without compromise if Christians truly seek to be of one min. If there is an honest, selfless yielding to know the mind of the Lord, there will surely be like-mindedness as a result.
Phil. 2:5, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."
1 Corinthians 1:10, "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment."
2 Corinthians 13:11, "Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you."
The second part of the cure for division is a baptism of love. The whole body of Christ needs to eat, digest, and assimilate 1 Corinthians 13 as its daily food. It needs to be filled and to be refilled with the Holy Spirit whose first fruit is love. It needs a deluging and a saturating with the purifying, perfecting love of God until love increases and abounds in the hearts of God's children.
1 Thess. 3:12, "And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you."
Phil. 1:9, "And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment."
Twice in Colossians Paul speaks of the members of the body being "knit together." The Greek means "compacted," implying firm consolidation. What can so unite members of the body differing so greatly in temperament, taste, thought and training? Only one thing, a divinely imparted, supernaturally-sustained love, can do it. Such unity comes when all things are done in love.
Col. 2:2, "That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love."
Ephesians 4:15, "But speaking the truth in love."
Ephesians 4:2, "With all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love".
Ephesians 4:16, "From whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love."
The spiritual man is big enough to recognize that it takes all the millions upon millions of believers in the past, present and future, until the coming of Christ completes it, to make up that wondrous body. He grasps the truth of that incomparable passage, Ephesians 3:17-19, where words fail even the Apostle Paul as he tries to show that it will take all the saints of all the ages to know the love of God that passeth knowledge. In the apprehension of this transcendent truth the spiritual man sees the terrible sin of jealousy, envy, unlove, strife, enmity, hatred, intolerance, selfishness, quarreling between members of the body of Christ. He gladly acknowledges that in the Church of God there is both room and need for the mystical, the practical, the philosophical, the scientific, the meditative, the active temperament. He acknowledges the greatness of truth and the absolute inability of any one person or sect to comprehend all truth or to embody its teachings perfectly. He joyfully acquiesces in God's plan of sharing His ministry gifts with all His children, dividing to each according to His divine will that His purpose for the world may be accomplished.
There is clearly defined attitude which every Christian must take toward his fellow-Christians if he means to live his life on the highest plane. It is an attitude of forbearance, humility, unselfishness, sympathy, frankness, helpfulness, peace and cooperation.
Col. 3:13, "Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any; even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye."
Phil. 2:3, 4, "Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others."
Romans 12:9, "Let love be without hypocrisy."
Romans 14:19, "Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another."
Galatians 5:13, "By love serve one another."
~Ruth Paxson~
(continued with # 10)
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