Useless Finger
Upon reviewing my first-aid knowledge through the booklet the training course had given to me, I was made to stop and think when I came to the section on amputation. Now, this booklet that I’m referring to has some staged pictures to help you gain an understanding of exactly how to administer the first-aid. But, unfortunately for squeamish me, the section on amputation had a picture of a finger, wrapped in medical fabric, in a plastic bag on an icepack. I believe that you will agree with me when I say that that finger was utterly useless. That finger could do nothing for itself now that it was severed from the body it belongs to. What made me stop to consider this unfortunate finger, was something that the Apostle Paul says in his letter to the Romans, chapter 12 and verses 4-5.
“ For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. ”
What Paul is saying here, is that all Christians are similar to a human body; in the sense that we all have different gifts and abilities given by God and yet belong together and can help one another. Hence, when I saw this useless finger, I considered how sometimes Christians can be a bit like that! Members of the body of Christ cannot be amputated in the sense that somebody or something will cut them off; no, rather, it is often ourselves who cut ourselves off! Consider what the author to the Hebrews writes in chapter 10, verses 24 and 25.
“ And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much more as you see the Day approaching. ”
Christians who do not meet regularly with other Christians are effectively amputating themselves from the body of Christ. All the good things we can give to, and benefit from, other believers are inaccessible if we do not meet other believers. I know that there are many good Christian Podcasts, and far more sermons, out on the internet but these are not replacements for actually meeting face-to-face with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Thus, just like that picture of the useless amputated finger, we too will be useless fingers when we forsake the assembling of ourselves together.
However, there is hope! The amputated finger would not be in the first-aid booklet if there was nothing we could do for it. The finger must be put in a plastic bag on an icepack to preserve it until the patient can get to hospital for it to be reattached. This process is called ‘finger replantation’; and I suggest there can be a procedure called ‘Christian replantation’! We know we have a merciful God (Hebrews 4:16) and that nothing is impossible for Him (Luke 1:37). So then, let us learn to not be useless fingers!