Rev Bernard Graham
It is good to know that God has won.
He is Lord!
Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. (Acts 4:32-35 ESV)
For the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof so we will rejoice
Now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment, and she poured it on his head as he reclined at table.
And when the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? For this could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.”
But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.” (Matthew 26:6-13 ESV)
Storms
Everything has a lesson. There are storms that cleanse, that dispense heat, that cause growth.
God builds Wonderful
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. (Psalm 139:13-14 ESV)
This speaks to how we are made by God. It shows both the macro and the micro. How and individual is built and how the body of Christ is build.
External structures are there to handle the stresses caused by movement. The internal structures handle the sustaining functions.
Losing a body part has an adverse impact on the whole body. If the local church loses a part than that body suffers. If the local church is lost than the universal church will suffer.
We have to support and protect each other. Both within the local church and between churches.
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many...
But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose...
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. (1 Corinthians 12:12-14, 18, 27 ESV)
You are needed as you are. You do not need to be different to FIT in.
so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:14-16 ESV)