KNIT TOGETHER IN LOVE

Colossians 2:1-3 (KJV) “For I would tht ye knew what great conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh; That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

Love will always get you where you want to be, LOVE is the “stitches”, or the glue, the “MATTER” that holds a LOCAL CHURCH together. In one place in the Bible the Holy Ghost led the writer to say, that LOVE covers a multitude of sin, LOVE is what keeps a group, a team, a couple together. It is what keeps friends together, it is the warmth, happiness, the good feeling that is present when you are together. Did not the HOLY GHOST also say “Where 2 or 3 are gathered together, there I am in the midst of them.”

GOD is LOVE, and so when WE come together it is like putting a bunch of sparks together and it becomes like a bon-fire. The warmth from that LOVE just flows in and out and among you all, or us all, if I may use that phrase. The warmth of the LOVE just draws everybody together and causes others to want to come and gather with you so that they also can feel that WARMTH. There AIN’T nothing like it!! Remember that this world, is a cold dark place without the LOVE of GOD in the midst of it. Kind of like bisquits! Have you ever taken some flour and put it in your mouth, it is not really very palatable by itself. But, if you take that flour, some milk and other ingredients, and kind of mix and pat it together and then put in the oven and heat it up, you have a really tasty morsel of food that will sustain you when you are hungry, and by-the-way, the WORLD is a hungry place, it is hungering for what GOD has for them, I think sometimes we have forgot the meaning of some words and take them for granted, like the word hunger which means: a feeling of discomfort or weakness caused by the lack of food. Doesn’t that sound like a fit discription of the world today. The world is just going to and fro with no power and finding no comfort for their pain, and WE, as the BODY of CHRIST have that FOOD, we have what they NEED. Each one of us as the unique part of that BODY, when gathered together with the other unique parts, make a BODY that can supply all the needs of the WORLD. You see the word “knit together” is a compound word that is put together by using the Greek word “SUN” a preposition, and the Greek word BIBAZO which translated into our language today means to “drive together” to cause things and even people to “UNITE” or mesh together. In Psalms 133, Please listen to what David says about HARMONY and UNITY, the KJV translates the Hebrew word here as “UNITY”, and I believe rightly so, but many of the other translations of the Bible translate it as “HARMONY”. Both translations are great and mean the same thing. The verse says: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments; As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.”

This Psalm was sung by the Jewish people as they came together to worship in the TEMPLE. The JEWS, for so long were very tribal, very distant from one another and GOD had promised them that HE would be there in the TEMPLE with them, when they met HARMONIOUSLY there to worship HIM. It is so JOYOUS and AWE inspiring to see GOD’s people fellowshipping together, LOVING one another and being HAPPY in the presence of one another. It is like the whipped cream and cherry on the top of a milkshake. And most of all it pleases GOD, to no end, to see HIS children, spreading HIS LOVE among one another. MT Zion of course is where Jerusalem is and in the background is Mount HERMON, which is the highest peak in Israel, and it is said that there is so much DEW on Mount HERMON that the mountain can not contain it but it “puddles up” and spills over and runs down to JERUSALEM. Dew is so refreshing, so LIVING, it sparkles in the sunlight and gives such emanance that David would liken it to ETERNAL LIFE. OH that the CHURCH would be like MT HERMON and with so much LOVE within it that that LOVE would puddle up and run out and fill the communities, the cities, the states, the countries, and YES even the whole world with LOVE, like the mountain fills JERUSALEM and the surronding valley’s with the DEW! 

In Ephesians 4:16 the Apostle Paul used the same Greek word as he was explaining how the BODY of CHRIST was fit together with JESUS as the HEAD of that BODY, but the HOLY SPIRIT chose to translate it with a different English word. Well, listen or notice as I read that verse to us: “From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.” Can we let these verses that Paul has written, spark our imagination to the point where we will let it paint a picture in our minds of what Paul is talking about. Look at it this way, or in a similiar way. Think of  the size of the task, or JOB that GOD has given us to complete, the JOB of “GROWING A CHURCH” as the BODY of CHRIST. NOW, picture 1 person trying to accomplish that task, very daunting isn’t it. NOW, again, picture that person or BODY multiplied by even just 30 or 40, let me paint or draw that picture to help us picture it better. We, if my math is correct, as a picture of a person, who is now over 200 feet tall, about 70 or 80 feet wide with legs that are over 60 feet long with a stride of 50 or 60 feet and which would now make our reach, now also magnified to about 120 feet. Now, don’t go to thinking that your PASTOR has finally gone all the way and forever looney, but realize that I have just described a GIANT, which could now be more able to take care of and accomplish the great awesome task that GOD has set before us. Now, this body that I have just described, towers over the work that we are sent to do. WE can now, with less steps, with less reaches, with less volume in our combined voices, take the message of CHRIST out to our community and to, YES, even the whole world. Listen, my brothers and sisters in CHRIST, with our combined efforts we become this massive WITNESS for CHRIST and, our community, and our WORLD can better see the NEED to be SAVED and the NEED to JOIN the BODY to make it EVEN MORE effective in it’s outreach.