A Winning Team

No one wins the Tour de France alone! I've been watching the Tour each year since I became a serious cyclist about five years ago. It never interested me before that, but once you've ridden 100 miles or more in a single day on your bike (or 1500 miles in three weeks) you begin to appreciate what those riders do in the Tour.

The longer I've watched the more I've come to appreciate the importance of the team to any individual's victory. If you want to win the Tour you must be a climber, and more. If you're only a climber you might win the King of the Mountains, but never the GC. And if you have only climbers on your team, no one on your team will ever win the GC. And although a sprinter could never win overall, it's good to have a wining sprinter on your team, because your sponsors like to see their logo flash across the finish line first every so often.

The body of Christ is like a winning Tour de France team. God gives different gifts to the members of the body. Some of those gifts are very evident. When the pastor is able to proclaim God's Word in a clear, powerful and relevant manner Sunday after Sunday the whole body is blessed. When the musical leadership is strong, lively and glorious the whole body rejoices. Those members are kind of like the GC contenders on the team. But there are many others gift required for the whole body to function effectively. It's easy to forget how important those other members are when their gifts are not as visible or prominent as others.

In 1 Corinthians 12:24-25 Paul says: "But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other." Don't think too highly of yourself if your gifts happen to be evident or prominent in the body. No one wins without the whole team! And don't diminish yourself if your gifts don't seem as important or as strong as others. God gave you the gifts you have to support and strengthen the whole Body. And without your gifts the body cannot function effectively.

The fact that we all belong to each other and that together we all make up the Body of Christ should increase our love for each other. When we love each other as Christ loved us, then we will truly form a winning team.