One God, One Body

I read a biography this summer entitled The Watchmaker’s Daughter which detailed the life of Corrie Ten Boom. You have probably heard of her: She lived in the Netherlands, hid Jews during World War 2, and was caught and taken first to prison where she was in solitary confinement for weeks on end and then moved to two different concentration camps.

After the war, she opened homes for those traumatized by the brutality they had witnessed, and she then began traveling and speaking about her experience and God’s sustaining love, grace, and presence even in horrific circumstances.

A book like that will always put one’s own situations in perspective. Wow... what an easy life I live. How small my trials seem next to hers and so many others who lived during those days. I recently came across 2 Peter 1:3-4a, and it amazed me to think that these verses applied just as much to Corrie Ten Boom in the 1940s as they apply to me in the 2020s. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises.

God gave Corrie, through His divine power, everything that she needed for a godly life in that setting in which she lived. Those days for Corrie held great darkness, fear, loneliness, questions, suffering, and the death of her sister, but God carried her through it all. His power enabled her to smuggle a Bible into the concentration camp from which to hold devotions in her barracks. His power opened her mouth to speak truths from God’s Word to encourage women there who were crushed under the evil around them. God’s power allowed Corrie to forgive the very guards who had kept her imprisoned. God’s power kept her clinging to the precious and very great promises He had given in His Word.

What you and I have in common with every believer who has ever lived, be it Corrie Ten Boom or the apostle Peter himself, is that we worship the same God who gives to each of us all things that pertain to life and godliness in the time and place in which he sets us. That obviously looks very different across the decades and centuries, but it also looks very different from the people we sit next to at church. Our lives are each so unique, yet we are one body, called by God across centuries and locations to be His chosen people, as we heard this morning (1 Peter 2:9). We experienced that call as one people in a special way as we worshipped alongside our Hispanic brothers and sisters in Christ on Sunday morning. All of us in that auditorium and around the world who know Christ as our Savior can take courage. We hold in our minds and hearts such sweet promises that God our Father has given us. Through knowing Him, His glory and excellence, we have access to His divine power, enabling each of us to live in a way that shows forth His excellencies in our own unique situations, even in the most difficult times.

Be encouraged. You are not alone. God’s presence and power is with you, and His people, your family, are all around you. 

--Amy O’Rear