I find it so amazing how God ties in and builds upon the things we are studying. If you read a previous post from this week, Relationship verses Religion and the link posted there, Christianity Is Not a Relationship, It's a Religion then you are aware of the fact that God not only deals with us as individuals but as a corporate body of believers as well. This Sunday the sermon from Romans 11:11-24 was dealt with in regard to that corporate relationship. This passage is often looked at from the aspect of God dealing merely with individuals, which can also be a point of study, but in this instance we looked at it with the corporate relationship in mind. If we are grafted into Christ we will produce fruit otherwise we are we are not truly of Christ ans are cut off because of our unbelief. As a corporate body of Christ this is true also, as a corporate body what fruit is being produced?
I have a real life example of this! It is a sad story indeed! Several years ago, right after my husband finished seminary, we went to serve at a church and my husband's title was the minister of outreach and evangelism. This was a small country church on the edge of town. The community was growing up around it. Homes were going in that were four times as large as our little building which sat on several acres(plenty of room to build a larger one). The soybean fields had been cleared and were prepped for roads and new homes. God was opening the flood gates for us to reach out to this new community and to share His Word! There were several individuals in the congregation who were strong Christians and had captured the vision for this new task the Lord had placed before us and individually they were producing fruit but the church as a whole refused. The church corporately would not work toward reaching the community and was not producing fruit. Most were simply interested in having their fellowships and nothing more. The next summer when it had been scheduled for the building of the new community to kick into full gear the ground was tilled instead and the soybeans again began to grow. The church had been cut off from the work God had been providing. The opportunity had been missed and God moved on. We must view our relationship with God not only as an individual endeavor but as a corporate one as well and seek to serve Him in all that we do!

Labels: Christianity