You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body. It’s exactly the same with Christ. By means of His one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which He has the final say in everything (1 Corinthians 12:12).
Whether you love people by giving financially, by sharing your wisdom and knowledge, or by exercising your gifts and talents, your life is directly united to others and is interdependent on their reciprocating acts of love toward you. Mark Twain once said: “To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.” Love others lavishly— because in truth, you are showering love on yourself!
Yesterday we talked about ethics and taking a stand on behalf of others—today we will focus on why this is so important. Interestingly, the more authentic we become, the more interdependent we will be. As the dividing walls and facades come down, we learn to trust in and rely on one another—we realize we need each other to complete one another.
I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the way our world is made. No individual or nation can stand out boasting of being independent. We are interdependent. —Martin Luther King, Jr.
ACTION STEPS
| How deep is your sense of interdependence? |
| Where do you fit in to bring more completion to the Body of Christ? |
| What dividing walls are you still putting up to keep yourself independent? What can you do to start taking them down today, one brick at a time? |
In the same way, we are many, but in Christ we are all one body. Each one is a part of that body, and each part belongs to all the other parts (Romans 12:5 NCV).