City Life Starter

Written by Megan Meier

The Word

“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. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.”

Romans 12:4-6a

“It is only the Christians who have any idea of how human souls can be taken into the life of God and yet remain themselves – in fact, be very much more themselves than they were before.”

“The man is being caught up into the higher kinds of life – what I called Zoe or spiritual life: he is being pulled into God, by God, while still remaining himself.”

C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity Book 4 Ch 2

Exegesis

A cube is a cube by itself, but it requires six squares and twenty-four lines to be a complete three-dimensional figure. The fourth dimension is a tesseract (contrary to the book and movie A Wrinkle in Time, a tesseract isn’t a means of space-time travel, it’s a geometric figure that when unfolded, forms the shape of a cross). A tesseract has eight cubes, forty-eight squares, and one hundred ninety-two lines. It is a huge and unique figure, each piece is essential. If one line, just one, was missing, the tesseract would cease to exist.

Christ-followers are absorbed into God yet we are still ourselves. We are the lines in the great tesseract. God is three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but still One Being. You can’t have one without the other.

Application

God values teamwork, and He is an example for us in the Trinity. In a similar way, He did not create us to journey alone, He created us to function together. The heart, brain, lungs, and other systems have different shapes and functions. If one organ cannot work correctly, the others will try to compensate for it, and without outside intervention, the entire body will shut down. The players in an orchestra have instruments with different shapes and sounds and a rainbow of personalities, but together they make beautiful music.

It takes many believers to make up the body of Christ. If one of us doesn’t do our part, everybody suffers. Being pulled into God doesn’t mean we lose ourselves. In fact, we become more ourselves. We go from Bios to Zoe, the here-and-now lines to the eternal tesseract.  

Prayer

Dearest Lord, we are all essential to Your Kingdom. We celebrate the differences in fellow Christ-followers, when we work together for Your Glory, we create beautiful music. Help us to be a beautiful melody to You. In Jesus’ Most Precious Name I pray, Amen.