Instruments of God

One of the things I used to love to do before I went into full time ministry was to spend the day driving the tractor.  I loved mowing the pasture, planting oats to carry our cattle through the winter, or plowing the topsoil under in preparation for the spring growing season.  It can take up to two hours just to get ready for any one of those tasks.  The task at hand dictated which implement I would connect up to the tractor.  Sometimes it would be the big 10’ shredder, other times the planter and disk harrow, or else the three-bottom plow.  

It’s hard work hooking up those heavy implements to the tractor, but there’s no way around it.  It wouldn’t work to try to mow without the shredder.  The disk harrow sitting out in the pasture by itself would serve no purpose.  It would be senseless to try to turn over the soil without first hooking up the plow to the tractor.  The tractor and the implements each have their own function.  One is of no use by itself, but connected together they can do great things.     

So Paul says it is with the body of Christ.  Paul says “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it” (1 Cor 12:27 NIV).  We are all part of the body of Christ.  It takes each of us working together to be the vital church God calls us to be.  We must work side by side, encouraging each other, supporting each other, and edifying each other; each of us doing whatever God has led us to.  None of us is more important than the other.  None of us is less valuable than the other.  None of us can be the body of Christ alone.  We are all tools to be used by God as God sees fit. 

 Let us join hands and hearts and be the body of Christ God calls on us to be.

 Pastor Larry Scharmann