Paper chains are fun to make. They’re simple, they require little skill, and even children can do it.
Visit an elementary school classroom, and paper chains are de rigueur. They are part of the setting, either counting off days to something important, or showing levels of accomplishment for academic endeavors.
Being lightweight, paper chains can be stretched from point to point, crisscrossing the room, creating a swaying plethora of bright colors that dances with the movement of anyone who walks underneath.
Here’s the downside of paper chains. Tear one, and the rest lose their interconnected strength. Oh, if we pull it from the end, the chain only grows smaller, but rip a link in the middle, and our plethora of dancing brilliance crashes to the floor.
We have to exercise care in our handling of our paper chains.
1 John 3:17 tells us:
“But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?”
This verse comes to us in four parts. Four paper chain links. Let’s look at them one link at a time.
“But if anyone has the world’s goods…”
If God has blessed us with prosperity, then we have an obligation to our fellow believers. That’s scriptural. Read it in black and white.
“…and sees his brother in need…”
Not everyone has enough. There will be times our Christian brothers and sisters need our help to get by. It’s that paper chain thing, each link supporting the one attached to it.
“…yet closes his heart against him…”
This is the paper link carelessly torn and cast aside. How can the rest of the chain remain whole when one link falters in its duty?
“…how does God’s love abide in him?”
What is God’s love? Compassion. Bearing all hurts. A level of goodness that is so out of the ordinary that it’s not humanly possible for us to maintain it without the power of Christ in our lives.
Our Christian fellowship is a paper chain that depends on every link to cradle and support the links around it. When we exercise care in our handling of our relationships, we will be a swaying plethora of bright colors that shouts God’s presence to anyone who happens by.
The true Christian experience is about holding hands and being the strength to others that they can’t find on their own.
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Code: FGO.K.06.15c.vp.esv