The Purpose Of Diversity
Thought For The Week 153 By Val Warsop
For many of us, growing older heralds creaking joints, failing eyesight, poor hearing or any of a multitude of ‘small’ [and large] problems, as bodies begin to show the wear and tear of continual use. I no longer run upstairs or kneel to pray, and, but for the marvels of modern medicine, I would be blind! When, after a second cataract operation, I thanked my surgeon, he looked surprised and said it was nothing, just a very quick, routine procedure. “Not,” I replied firmly, “for those of us who, without it, would be blind; for us, it’s a miracle!”
Age or illness can create increased awareness of the many and varied functions of the different parts of the human body; it can heighten our perception of the importance of even hitherto unknown parts. We begin to have a greater understanding of the Apostle Paul’s statement that, “If one part of the body suffers, all the other parts suffer with it.” [I Corinthians 12:26 NLV]
It was no accident that Paul described Yahweh’s People as ‘The Body of Messiah’. In the same way that our human bodies must have diversity to work effectively, so, too, must the Body of Yahshua be made up of many members, with a diversity of personal gifts. In this we see the sovereign purpose of Yahweh, an amazing master-plan, designed to bring about the accomplishment of His eternal purposes. As members of this Body we should celebrate our diversities, and we should not allow them to separate us. “…diversity is intended to accomplish [Yahweh’s] unified purpose. [His] method employs diversity to create unity.” [NIV Study Bible]
A.W. Tozer writes that Yahshua calls His people, “to feel along with Him and to feel along with those that rejoice and those that suffer…to be to Him the kind of an earthly body in which He can weep again and suffer again and love again.” Extraordinarily, Paul describes this as “completing what is missing from [Messiah’s] sufferings with my own body…” [Colossians1:24 CEB]. We are a people of complexity and diversity, designed to be to our generation what Yahshua would be if He were here.
Photo by geralt
https://pixabay.com/en/smartphone-hand-photo-montage-faces-1445489/
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