As Important as Ligaments

Could you live without ligaments? You could, but only with great difficulty and pain.

According to this article, there is a woman who lives in Australia that was born with no ligaments. Her name is Lucy Foran. She was born with a rare disease that doesn’t even really have a name for it. All of her joints are partially or fully dislocated, and she undergoes a lot of physical therapy just to be able to walk. Everything is out of place. I love her attitude despite having this condition.

She says,

“I’ve got a family that loves me regardless of what’s going on with my bones.”

The Bible, when talking about the body of Christ–the church–says that above everything else believers are to put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony (Colossians 3:14). The word used for bind is the same root word used for ligaments. The purpose of ligaments are to hold our muscles and bones together. Without them, it is difficult to function.

Without love among believers in Christ, it is also very difficult to function.

What we often see is a group of people who are supposed to be functioning together as one body but have no love for each other. They have not put on the thing that most holds them together.

Colossians says a lot about how we are to interact with each other based on the fact that we are now “in Christ” (3:1). The author is admonishing those who love God in Christ to put off certain things and put on other things. Since our lives have been hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3), then we should act differently towards each other.

The church needs to love each other, despite the different functions, roles, and even preferences we have.

The command that Jesus gives to “love each other as I have loved you” helps hold us together and gives the culture the opportunity to know that we are His disciples (John 13:34-35).

So don’t go around trying to function in church without putting on love. It is the ligament that holds us all together.

PS – Colossians 3:12-17 gives some practical advice of how to live in harmony with other believers.

PSS – We’ll be talking more about this at church on Sunday. Looking forward to it.