Body of Christ - Christian Perspective

Comparison Forest was a strange forest indeed.

The fact that it had a lot of different types of trees in it didn’t make it strange. What made Comparison Forest unique was how all the trees compared themselves with each other.

The maples all tried hard to stretch their branches higher, hoping to achieve the oak’s height. They wished they could produce the acorns the squirrels and other animals loved so well. Sometimes, one could even hear an audible sigh in the forest as the maples lamented not being oaks. The fact that they offered brilliant colors each fall and delicious syrup each spring (plus seeds the animals loved) didn’t seem very important to them.

On the flip side, the oaks could often be seen drooping their branches in an attempt to look like maples. They felt terrible about being so large and conspicuous. Why couldn’t they be maples?

Then there were the pine trees. They hated how sappy and prickly they were (and how soft their wood was) and wished they could have beautiful leaves and firmer wood like the maples and oaks. It didn’t occur to them what protection and beauty they provided during the winter months when the maples and oaks lost those leaves.

Each tree in the forest was too busy comparing to realize that each of them had a role to play and gift to give.

“For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them:…” Romans 12:4-6 (ESV)

It was a very strange garden.

It had been planted by the gardener, with each plant lovingly and thoughtfully chosen. The gardener had put a wide variety of plants in his garden—ones of every hue, texture, and height. Some were designed to bear large, showy flowers; others were to provide a restful green backdrop. Some were designed to cover the ground; others to grow high and provide shade. They were all designed to grow strong where they’d been planted, only in different ways.

But these plants, rather than simply growing and being all they were created to be, started comparing themselves with each other. Some of the large, showy plants began holding back their flowers (they didn’t want to look so conspicuous), while others puffed out abnormally wide in pride over their beauty. The background plants felt badly that they didn’t have flowers and thought they didn’t matter. The tall plants began stooping so they wouldn’t look so much taller than the others, while the shorter ones exhausted themselves trying to grow tall. The ones in the shade drooped, wishing they could be in the sun; the ones in the sun drooped, wishing they could be in the shade.

The silly plants didn’t realize that they’d been created and placed where they were placed for a purpose. They were all part of the same garden, and each one needed to do its job.

“But now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.” 1 Corinthians 12: 20-21, 27 (KJV)

Tag: Body of Christ

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