Tuesday, November 10, 2015

If We Are His Body:Loving Children Like Jesus Did

Romans 12: 4-5 "For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function,  so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others."

While every individual's gifting is certainly a very personal matter the above verses are crystal clear. We, the Church of Christ, are the earthly manifestation of His body. Upon Christ's ascension into heaven and the first believers encounter and anointing of the Holy Spirit we were commissioned to be Christ's body until his return.

We are his hands, his feet, his mouth piece. We are called to continue the good and holy works that Jesus performed during his time here on earth. We, the Church of Christ, are utterly failing. So many of us sit in our church bubbles, involved in our church ministries, aimed at our church children, and wonder why the world is falling apart. We look on from "afar" at our missionaries to other countries and we put a little extra in the offering plate and then head to our comfortable homes and our good paying jobs. We look on at the members in our church who have taken on foster or adoptive children and we give them a pat on the back, we send them a meal that first week they join as a family and then we ignore their desperation as they begin the treacherous work of dealing with violent out bursts, eating dilemmas, reactive attachment disorders, etc. We look at them and tell them that we love them with our words but we all too often sit motionless as if God left His body somehow devoid of arms and legs with which to go and to gather the lost and the hurting, the meek and the lowly at heart.

Mark 10:13-16 says this, "People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.

If we are His body then why are our arms drawing the little children to us? Why even in the midst of our outreach programs are we so unaware and uninformed regarding the issues that these children are facing that their "bad behavior" leads us to be like the disciples in the above passage instead of like the God who was indignant over the absurdity of turning them away.

I was recently pointed some statistics in the United States. They are dated 2013 so I'm sure the numbers have changed a bit sense then. Some states seemed "better than others" in comparison, but every state's statistic brought me to a point of indignant and righteous anger. What we can come to understand, is that in every single state there are more churches than their are orphans. In the entirety of the United States there are more than 3 times as many churches as their are orphans. That means if one family in every 3 churches adopted a child there would be no more orphans.

So many will go onto quote that adoption is expensive. It is, there are interesting and unique obstacles you must travel through in order to adopt. However, if 3 churches would get behind that 1 family and support them financially through that process, the cost would be minuscule and we would have no more orphans.

Not everyone is a hand, not everyone can be the feet, not everyone has a heart that is prepared for adoption, but if every piece of the body did what every piece of the body was suppose to do we could support the families who are God's heart in this area and we, as the community and body of Christ could eleminate the orphan crisis in our country and could even go on to eliminate the crisis in the entirety of our world.

What are you doing today to be the body of Christ that made clear the importance and the value of children? How are you supporting God's heart toward the orphan? If you haven't arleady check out our mission page and get involved. Let us wipe out our orphan foster care crisis one child, one family, one church, one community, one state, and one nation at a time. 


WE ARE THE BODY

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