Instruction manual needed

Ephesians 4:15-16

Do you remember your first bike?  Ours was a “Silver King” and dad bought it from Plimper’s hardware store.  It was for my brother, it cost dad $75 and he must have had it on layaway; because there is no way he had that much cash.  It was a beauty when dad brought it home, did I tell you that its frame was made out of a new material called cast Aluminum, and it was very heavy.  Within weeks, to dad’s shock, my brother Fred had removed the fenders and the chain guard to lighten the weight and make it faster.  By the time I got our bike, it had a broken frame, and no one knew how to weld aluminum, so we wrapped wire around the frame to hold it together.  That wire would come loose at the worst of times, and I would be running home for some monkey blood that mother would doctor my bleeding body with.

The material the apostle Paul is telling the churches about that holds the whole body together by every joint, with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, is none other than the Creator, Jesus Christ.  If only we kids could have talked with the creator of the “Silver King,” he would have told us it was not designed for speed, nor was it meant to jump over curbs, it was designed for looks, not for kids.

I’m not sure if the “Silver King” came with an instruction manual but Jesus knew that without instructions we who are in Christ, His body, the Church, would never stay together.  The apostle Paul, states in Romans 12:5, “so we though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”  And when you have many parts; each part has a will, that the world and the enemy of our heart is trying to influence, and without the Creator’s handbook, without following His instructions on operating as one, the body will not function in unity.  In fact, it will be similar to a ship without a rudder, it is tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by the winds, and verse 14 tells us the same things happen to believers, that evil teachers, pastors, priests, will sneak into the church and use craftiness in deceitful schemes to keep us from unity.

As we grow, we become more like our Master, we begin to speak the truth in love, we grow in all ways like our Jesus, who is our head, and from whom the whole body is joined and held together.  All parts are working properly, making the body grow so that it builds itself up in love; that is the goal.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice