Together

My brother and I would go to West Virginia each summer to stay with my mother’s parents, Papaw and Granny Epperly.  It was wonderful.  Papaw was a self-employed plumber, and we would go to work with him several days.  We would pick apples, milk the cow, load bales of hay in the barn loft, and basically have fun.  We would sleep upstairs where a breeze was always blowing in one window and out the other.  They had hogs, chickens, rabbits, cows, and a great dog.  But my fondest memory was breakfast.  My, oh my, what a meal!  Granny fried eggs and sausage each morning and then made gravy with the grease drippings.  But her greatest accomplishment was her biscuits.  They would make your tongue beat your brains out.  With freshly churned butter from the cow, those biscuits were next to heaven.  But none of the ingredients were any good by themselves.  The flour, butter, and buttermilk were nasty by themselves, but together, they were divine!  The same could be said about God’s family, the church.  Hey, we need each other!  Where would the pastor be if there were no one to preach to?!  What if the music director didn’t show up on Sunday?!  What if the ushers didn’t help with the greeting, seating, and offering?!  We need everyone!  The old apostle John said in I John 3:16, “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”  Hey, we must have fervent love, one for another.  Separate, we are nothing, but together, we are the body of Christ, here on earth!  What a beautiful thing, the church can be!