HOLA (HOLY) MOLA!

‘Oh Hey There’ photo © Per-Ola Norman / Wikimedia Commons.

A Mola Mola is an Ocean Sunfish that can weigh over 2000 pounds!!!!  It can be 10 feet long and up to 8 feet high!!!!!  It is named after the Latin word for a ‘millstone’, because that is what it looks like!  (See photo above).  It has a gray color, a rough texture and a circular shape.    

What in the world does this weird fish have to teach us???

Do you remember the scripture from Job 12 in my intro:  ‘But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you.’

These crazy mola molas turn on their sides and float to the surface of the water to bask in the sun and allow sea birds to feast on the more than 40 parasites living on their 3-inch-thick skin.  The sea birds and the mola have a wonderful symbiotic (mutually beneficial) relationship!

SHOULDN’T WE?

Why did God create us?  He created us so He would have someone to love!!!  Someone who would be in a ‘symbiotic’ relationship with Him.  Someone who would love Him back.  God and man living in a ‘mutually beneficial’ relationship.  But, of course, man sinned against God and was separated from Him.  But God’s desire to have someone to love will never change.  Like our pastor says every Sunday!  “God loves you and there is nothing you can do about it!”

He sent us Jesus who makes it possible to be reconciled to God which restores that ‘symbiotic relationship’ with Him.  ‘God reconciled us to Himself through Christ…reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.’  
2 Corinthians 5:18-19. 

Our own bodies show us how a symbiotic relationship works.  I take care of my body by keeping it healthy and in return, my body, in a mutually beneficial relationship, helps me do what I need or want to do.  God gives us a metaphor in 1 Corinthians 12 to help us understand how He intends us to live in a symbiotic relationship with Him and each other.  

‘Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts forms one body, so it is with Christ.
Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body.
As it is, there are many parts, but one body.The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!”  And we certainly can’t say we don’t need our head!  I think most of you realize that as a Christian, we are part of Christ’s body!  And that Jesus is the head of that body!   
‘And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.  Ephesians 1:22-23.  NKJV.

We all know what happens when the human body starts to mal function because of a disease or injury to the brain.  So too it is with the body of Christ.  We need to allow the head of the body of Christ, Jesus, to determine our every move and thought, or we might be like those that are paralyzed or have Parkinson’s Disease and not be able to function as God fully intended. 

‘Joyful are people of integrity, who follow the instructions of the LORD .
Joyful are those who obey his laws and search for him with all their hearts.
They do not compromise with evil, and they walk only in his paths.
You have charged us to keep your commandments carefully.
Oh, that my actions would consistently reflect your decrees!
Then I will not be ashamed when I compare my life with your commands.
As I learn your righteous regulations, I will thank you by living as I should!
I will obey your decrees. Please don’t give up on me!
How can a young person stay pure? By obeying your word.’  Psalm 119:1-8.  NLT.

STAY IN A SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRIST AND BE BLESSED!

Remember the famous hymn by Charles A. Miles, ‘In The Garden’, written in 1913.

He walks with me, and He talks with me,
He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.