I’m often known to say that there is no spiritual hierarchy in God’s world, there isn’t a Spiritual Elite class or a Super Christian category.  We’re all part of this Body and we each play integral roles. 

My son liked the music of Lecrae many years ago, may still.  I found I liked it too.  Far Away is one of my all time favorite songs.  He’s a young man I have long been drawn to for the uniqueness of his relationship with the Lord and the way he allows us to see that relationship ebb and flow, grow, stagnate, and struggle to thrive. 

I recently read his autobiography which was a great read.  In my mind Lecrae carries a blazing torch in the Kingdom. 

There are others like him in my hierarchy.  While I say I don’t ascribe to spiritual elitism, I guess my attitude makes a liar of me.  Lecrae is a powerful foot blazing a godly path through cultural waters.  Timothy Keller is an intellectual theologian, a mighty brain charting courses through murky territory so that we can all better comprehend how to traverse the landscape of sanctification.  Priscilla Shirer is this wonderful voice calling us all to care and be impassioned for the purposes of the Lord.  Tim Tebow leaves another footprint of spiritual uprightness that says you can be good and godly and thrive in a predominantly secular realm.  On and on the list goes of men and women who seem to be a slightly larger or more powerful part of this Body we share.

The dream of sharing a table with these beacons of faith, joining in prayer and sharing words of wisdom, truth, and encouragement, it’s a desire that seems fitting and yet so far from reality.

And then I read Peter’s words in I Peter 5 where he tells us to resist the devil because there are others in this fight with us—you need to win not just for you but for me.  I couple that with I Corinthians 12 that tells us we’re all vital parts of a larger whole. 

And I hear the words that an eye can’t say to the ear it doesn’t need it.  And the hand can’t say it has no need of the feet and the mouth.  And all the sudden it occurs to me that there are two dangers hidden in these words.  One, I can dismiss the value of your role, as an ear I can say I have no need of you the eye.  But then there’s number two, I as the ear can say you have no need of me. 

While most of the time I find an abiding fulfillment in God’s appointment—it’s enough that God designated me to be this little part of this great Body.  But then there are the times when it occurs to me that I desperately need the Lecrae’s and the Gordon MacDonald’s and the Kirk Cameron’s that make up this Body

while not being quite sure they need me.

If you wonder whether or not I need you, I do.  If you think the world could survive with just a handful of amazing men and women like your spiritual heros, it couldn’t.  If you’re not sure if your role is one we’d miss if you didn’t fill it, we would.