July 23, 2012
On the Offense
From my front window I watched what appeared to be two sparrows in an
aerial dogfight with a raven four times their size. Their aggression didn’t let
up for a moment until they had chased the raven out of their air space. I doubt
the raven would be intimidated had there been only one sparrow, but with two of
them the scavenger was outmatched, outwitted and outmaneuvered. According to
Jesus believers too have power when we come together. “Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you
ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For
where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” (Matt
18:19-20 NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----We are promised an eternal place in God’s perfect existence, and our spirits are made alive even today when we love Christ and turn to Him from the myriads of evils which can attract and capture our intentions. Yet, although we are thus made whole for the greatness of our destiny, we remain broken in the weakness of our temporal present. The mixture of these two situations creates in us strengths and leaves in us weaknesses. Which character traits and skill sets are strong and which are broken varies greatly between individuals. So we each conquer particular problems of this life, and we each fail against other ones.
-----But as you’ve noted, we all fail as individuals against the general load of temporal problems. I thank God for this. We are called to a way of life that is about love and community and the sorting effect of truth. God gives particular attention to the individual because His love is particular. But community is made of the collection of individuals aiming to reflect God, therefore aiming to love one another in particular ways (as distinguished from a collective of subjects rendered into a generality by denying individuality.) It is when individual meets individual and particular resources serve particular needs across the whole of those who love God in truth that the image of God is reflected in the activities of His people. We don’t see little sparrow leaders delegating duties to the little chaser sparrows who then drive off the ravens. The ones who chase the raven away are simply the ones who were close by when the raven came and acted out of their nature of being sparrows. Of course, they are also the ones who can fly. Because we don’t see the ones who can't fly (maybe the babies) we don’t tend to think of them who are served by sparrow-nature driving to the chase the ones who can.
-----So the wisdom and resourcefulness of God’s Spirit operates in the renewal of our individual minds, changing us from one degree of glory to another into His likeness. His love for the particular is then enacted in the particular nature each of His individuals reflects flowing together into a flood of general care working health for the whole body.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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