How My Heart Yearns Within Me

Easter has passed but the impact of the greatest event in human history still resounds in my soul, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” In his exclamation, Job both expressed the central hope of our faith and the essence of our reason to worship. Paul affirms these truths in his letter to the Galatians. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” For just a moment, focus in on the phrase “The life I live in the body.” Certainly, Paul is referring to our physical life and physical body. But there is another “body” in which we live our life of faith. The body of Christ, His church, must also live together by faith. We must embrace the fact that we have been crucified with Christ. Every time we gather in worship we celebrate His love for us displayed in His sacrifice on the cross. We are uniquely identified as the body of Christ through our common faith in the cross of Christ. A good friend helped this truth come to life for me. He sent a brief article and illustration that I want to share with you. Medical researchers have known for sometime now about a family of proteins that are integral to the structure of our physical cells. Laminins, these cell adhesion molecules, literally hold our body together, one cell joined to the next which is joined to the next and so on. Here is what the structure of laminin looks like.

As Colossians 1:17 reminds us, the body of Christ is held together one person joined to the next which is joined to the next and so on, by Christ and the fact that we have all been crucified with Christ in order that we might have life in Him, now and for eternity. Now that is something to make our hearts yearn within us to worship Him.