Getting ready for church Sunday morning, that scripture came to mind: “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together…” [Hebrews 10:25 KJV] But this time, the Lord was speaking to me a whole ‘nother dimension than just “be sure to attend church regularly”. It had to do with the meaning of the word ‘assembling’.
You could put all the loose parts of an iPhone in a box, but that wouldn’t be an assembly. And it wouldn’t function. It’s only when all those parts are assembled… connected together, each in its own place, according to design… that those parts can fulfill all the many amazing functions of that iPhone.
Just getting a bunch of people together in a building, or living room, or park, doesn’t make it an assembly in the way that God has designed His church. It’s when you have all the parts and pieces put together… connected… attached… assembled according to God’s design… each in its proper position… that you have a church that can function and operate in its full design potential.
So that’s how God’s people can gather together, and become an ‘assembly’. But then we need to see that each of these small assemblies is really a ‘sub-assembly’ of the complete product… the whole body of Christ. Each sub-assembly (church) needs to fit together… properly attached to all the other sub-assemblies (churches) for the complete product (THE church) to function according to its design! A high-tech iPhone touchscreen assembly is not worth much, detached from the software or the power source.
An individual Christian can be quite impressive. But he’ll never fulfill his designed purpose until he’s connected properly to a sub-assembly. A subassembly church will never fulfill its glorious purpose, independent of the whole assembly.
Just as you can’t put all the many iPhone parts in a pile and pour glue over it, and call it an assembly; so neither can you get a bunch of Christians to just stick together, and call it a living functioning church. There is a right order. There is a design. There is a specific sequence of connections. There are whole lot of little screws that just hold things together. There are many wires and circuits that carry inputs and power from one part to another. There is a ‘hierarchy’, (to use a much-maligned term), designed into an iPhone, that cannot be violated, for the phone to perform all its “Wow” features.
Whenever we, as Christians, gather together… whether in living rooms, restaurants, parks, or church buildings… we each need to seek to know our fit and function in the assembly. And also, we need to be keen to recognize God’s designed order and flow… His hierarchy.
God has designed awesome power and potential into His church. He wants to see every single feature used to the MAX! Let’s dig into the Owner’s Manual, and get everything working as He designed it!!
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