The body is a wonderfully made fragile grouping of parts that work together, or the body doesn’t function. When one part of the body stops working properly, it causes other parts of the body to start failing. The parts depend on each other so much that when one part is damaged or weakened, the whole thing can start to slowly shut down. Some parts, like the heart, can have major impact immediately; while other parts will slowly ware the body down over the years.

This is the part that is important. When one part of the body has a problem, it is the responsibility of the whole body to care for itself; which in turn means caring for the part with the problem. Sometime we have the part cut out, and hope we can do without it; or take drugs or treatments or add a replacement part to try to replace what the part was doing. Other times we compensate by over working other parts to do the work while the part with the problem heals. Sometime we become antisocial and recluse because the body cannot cope.

Am I speaking of a physical body, or a body of believers? Yes. Strangely enough both have similar problems, reactions, and solutions. The body of believers is compared to a physical body for a reason. Will tell you I do not know all the problems and do not have all the answers to the particular problems in either the physical body or the body of believers, but I believe the overall answer is same for both. The body must care for itself, and that starts with a firm foundation in what we believe – our faith.

I believe God can, does, and will heal, but He also put healing into our body when He created us. Again I am speaking about both the physical body and the body of Christ (know what you believe in). We have been commanded to love one another, but it is not a commandment with a curse – it is a commandment with a built in blessing. We are told in the scriptures to love our wife as Jesus loves the believers; and that is the same way a man loves and cares for his own body. The body has a responsibility to care for itself.

People, the body of Christ is messed up, because we have isolated ourselves to groupings of people with like belief systems and like problem areas. We have created bodies of believers from the parts and pieces of wounded and broken bodies. We have cut out the parts we have seen as having problems, and taken parts and tried to replace their functions or we are doing without. I am not a Church basher. I love the Church – I am part of it – it is my own body and I love it and desire to care for it. We are a body of rejected stones trying to fit together. Jesus came for such as we are.

© 2012, Tim D. Coulter Sr.