Jn 15:1-7 (4)
Wong Yoke Lin had moved with her family to Singapore just a weeks earlier in order to earn better wages. She was getting accustomed to the large, noisy machinery in the plywood factory where she was now employed. That morning in April 1975 all seemed to be going well as the plywood planks rolled down the chute to the conveyor belt. Then a plank got caught and Yoke Lin tried to free it from the machinery. In horror and pain she screamed as her arm was quickly torn off at the elbow.
She was rushed to the hospital. Her severed arm was removed from the machine and was sent with her in the lorry. Four surgeons battled for five exhausting hours to save the seventeen year old girl and to reconnect her arm to her body. The surgery was successful. Later she returned to the factory where she worked for four more years.
The stark reality is that if the vessels, tendons, nerves and muscles on both sides of the arm had not been wedded together the girl would have lost the arm. In much the same way each born again believer is part of the body of Christ. If we are severed from Him by sin then we loose our ability to function and maintain life. Without Christ we are nothing… and without Christ we have no spiritual life.