There is an ornamental tree outside my office that is currently in full bloom. Yesterday was a particularly gorgeous spring day, and I was beckoned out the door by the sight of the clear blue sky, green grass and this really striking tree.

I’m not usually one to literally stop and “smell the roses”, but I got up close to this tree to examine its blossoms, and I was struck by how relatively ordinary the individual blossoms were. I can’t deny that the plainest of flowers is still a magnificent work of art, but it occurred to me that the impact of looking at the individual blossoms was not the same as seeing this whole tree in bloom. I thought at once of the testimony of the church.

Our collective impact is designed “so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (Eph. 3:10). Were those angelic beings to observe our individual lives—and they do!—they would see some evidences of God’s grace and wisdom, but also a lot of flaws. For the most part, God’s saints are just plain ordinary. But what God puts on display in the corporate testimony of His church is enough to blow the angels away! Therein lies the manifold wisdom of God.

It’s important that each of us maintain our individual pursuit of knowing Christ and walking in the Spirit, but we need to remember that God has really designed us so that our impact as a church—a collective organism—is what will stop an ordinary worldling in his or her tracks and beckon them to come take a closer look.

- A guest posting from Chris