Cutting Edge

"Ouch!" I yelped.  A little pressure on my finger I had cut a few days ago told me it was still sore.  My husband had had our kitchen knives sharpened, and this was the second time I cut myself! Not bad, not too much worse than a paper cut, really, and it was painless when it happened, thanks to the precision sharpening.  But despite band-aids and antibiotic ointment the first one was slow in healing, and now this one still bothers me.  Dishwashing doesn't help, especially when a knife has slipped into the sink!

It's funny how such an insignificant injury on the tip of a finger can affect one's whole outlook! Like they say, the worst (illness, injury) is the one that happens to you! The whole body is connected.

As it says in Paul's teaching on unity in I Corinthians 12:14, "For the body is not one member, but many. (15) If the foot shall say, because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? (16) And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? (17) If the whole body were an eye, where the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?"

He goes on to say that all members of the body of Christ, or the church, are dependent on each other. "And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you," (21). Verse 26 says, "And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it."

We all have our part to do, and He gives us different gifts and abilities. "There is one body, and one Spirit...One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all who is above all, and through all, and in you all," Ephesians 4:4-6.

Paul tells us that God gave us apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers "For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ," Ephesians 4:11, that we "...may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love," Ephesians 4:15-16.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made, and born to serve the Lord! And the only sharp thing I really need is the Sword of the Spirit!