MENACING MEMBERS

Would it not be wonderful if all those in the body of Christ were “Ministering Members”, accepting their responsibility to aid the others, working in harmony to fulfill the will of Christ and manifesting His likeness to those without. Thank God for such members–the church could not function without them. Unfortunately there are some who are menacing members who pose a great threat to the church.

I recently read an article, by a preacher I have great respect for, entitled, “Abusing the Body”–yeah, I hear ya laughing! O well, I really did, and it was about what you might expect–“Abusing the body”. What he said was factual and something we need to think about, but it prompted me to think along a different line. I started thinking about those who abuse the body of Christ. We live in a day when we hear a lot about abuses of different sorts– child abuse, spousal abuse, etc., but nobody is talking about church abuse. Someone needs to sound the alarm!

Over the years I have preached many messages related to the church and even used the phrase,”God is interested in body-building”. As Paul said, ” Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.” (Rom. 14:19). So, I got to thinking about people’s abuse of the Body of Christ, the church. We could spend hours talking about the various ways in which people harm the church, but for now I just want you to think about the seriousness of such a sin. Abusing your own body is bad enough, but I suspect it is an even more serious offense to abuse the Lord’s body. It puts us in grave danger when we harm the Lord’s church, — even in danger of the grave. Really! Paul made this very clear when he wrote about the problems in the church at Corinth (1 Cor. 3:16-17; 11:29-30).