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No man is an island...
This morning it has become abundantly clear to me once again just how much the Body needs one another.
For the one who thinks they can make it alone and are in need of nothing or no one, I grieve because you are missing so much.
This Body of believers is diversified...true enough, yet we hold to certain common convictions which should bind us together rather than separate.
John Donne wrote these words in Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII:
"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...
As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....
No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
Hezekiah Walker wrote I need you to survive, and for some it may just be a pretty song. But when we understand that spiritual hermits accomplish nothing on their own, we understand the futility of it all.
Who is helped if I cloister myself off from the Body?!
Will I pray for those whom I deem to be spiritually inferior?!
Will I trust those whom I have cut off from fellowship?!
Does not my choice of seclusion open me up to attack from the enemy?!
I wonder...
Hez wrote:
I pray for you...you pray for me
I love you...I need you to survive
I won't harm you with words from my mouth
I love you...I need you to survive
The Church needs this commitment to each other...just my Sunday morning thoughts...
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