I don’t have HBO.

If I did, I would have watched the recent mini-series called “The Pacific”.  The series was based on the experiences of three soldiers in the Pacific theater during WWII.  I recently finished reading two of the three books the series was based upon.  There was no emphasis on grand and broad strategy (except to complain) or even on small unit infantry tactics.  These were the experiences of individual soldiers living and fighting in the weary muck and gore of the Pacific Islands.

The armed forces are made up of individuals.

Let’s think about the place of the individual.  What do you think?  Did Jesus come to save the world (all the people all at once) or the individuals that over the generations have made up that world?  Ponder it, please; it may change the way you think about yourself and your relationship with the Lord.

Did Jesus speak to multitudes or to the individuals within that multitude?  Did Apostles like Peter and Paul write to individual believers in some specific location or to a homogeneous mass of humanity?  Remember, they mentioned individual people by name in many of their letters.

Does the Lord expect you to relate to Him on an individual level?  Relate means relationship, doesn’t it?  Do we have an individual or personal relationship with the Savior?  Are we personally and individually responsible for our attitudes and actions, or do we function only on the level of a village?  (No idiot jokes here because that would imply individual behavior unless the whole village was idiots, then who could tell.)

Jesus loves individuals.  He died for all the individuals, you and me and everyone else, but as individuals.  You do not have to be in a meeting of other Jesus lovers to relate to Him.  You can love, serve and worship Him right where you are, even alone.  The meeting is good, but the real church does not cease to function or exist until it gathers. The church doesn’t mystically appear as it funnels into some lifeless steel and stick structure. The church is, always, through you and me as we live in Him.

As soon as it comes out, I’m getting the DVDs.