Learning to Receive

We had our over-fifty meeting at church last night. It was great as usual. Good food and fellowship and a great teaching. Ivan Diaz, our leader, gave the teaching. He handed out  two pages filled with familiar bible verses about learning to be a slave, vines and branches, and loving one another. He did a great job of explaining the verses.

That wasn’t the best part of his presentation. That came with his personal testimony. Recently his wife has struggled with medical issues and he came to a point where he could no longer handle it alone. He had to accept help from other members of the church. He spoke about the difficulty of doing that, receiving love.

In many segments of the world the church isn’t doing very well. In others, it is flourishing. I have long  believed that the church is doing best where it is being persecuted. It may also be true that it is doing best in those places and in those situations where it’s members recognize the importance of the body and the need of each person to receive the love the body offers. That occurs in areas of persecution, but it occurs in other areas as well, such as poorer regions or areas where there is a culture of interdependence.

In places where the church is weak, we are taught individualism, independence and the importance of standing up on our own. Jesus taught us that folks would learn that we are His by the way we love each other. Many of us are pretty good at loving, once we come to Christ, we just aren’t very good at being loved. That requires a recognition that we need others and what they have to offer. That goes against the individualism, independence, and self-reliance theme we have all been taught.

Let’s learn to recognize our need to be loved and the blessing that comes from receiving Jesus love from each other. Let’s try to learn that we are meant to work as a body, each part playing an important function and aiding the roles of each other.