1 Corinthians 12:25-26
That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.  And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.

The church shouldn’t be a gathering of separate lives that come together a few times a week and then disperse.  It should be lives intertwined that are never severed, held and bonded together by Christ Himself.  If He is the vine and we are the branches, then we are united into one whole with Him at the center.  And just as our physical bodies don’t separate and come apart, the body of Christ must be forged together in the same kind of unity, part of each other and interdependent on one another, all with the ultimate purpose and goal of glorifying Christ in this world and seeing others be grafted in.

But to achieve that, we would have to be intimately involved in one another’s lives.  To suffer and rejoice with each other in such deeply personal things, we would have to have more than superficial relationships.  To have those kinds of pain-sharing and joy-sharing relationships, we have to get closer to each other, be willing to be open with others and allow them to be open themselves.  It’s not about being nosy and gossipy, but sharing burdens and rejoicing together in a shared song of praise to the One so worthy of it.

So how do we achieve this kind of unity in a body that seems so fragmented?  We must base everything on Jesus Christ and His finished work and build a strong foundation on His Word.  If we compromise that, we place ourselves on shaky ground and will ultimately fall apart.  But if we follow God’s Word and actually do what it says, we can’t help but be drawn together, because the very nature of God’s Spirit promotes this kind of unity that knits us together as one.  When a body has a broken bone, some of its resources have to be spent mending that break until it is healed.  And when the body of Christ has division, we spend effort and energy mending those things that we could be using to further the cause of Christ.

We are all individuals, each one special and unique, but we are all equal in God’s eyes, and that is how we should see each other, as well.  We’re part of a whole.  We all just love God and want to serve Him.  And we need each other.  So let’s care about each other.  Let’s help each other.  Let’s minister to each other and lean on each other and edify one another.  And let’s join together as a united body of Christ focused on serving and honoring Him together.