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W2W Blog: We are ... the Body of Christ

We are… the Body of Christ

Recently I have been so struck as I’ve been reading through 1 Corinthians and Ephesians that we are the Body of Christ… the Body of Christ!!! This is part of our identity as God's people.

Here are a few things that have really blown my mind. I pray they will encourage you too and cause you to praise God as you consider what this wonderful aspect of who we are.

1 Cor 12: 12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many....

18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be....

27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

 

Being the body of Christ means:

  • We are under Christ’s headship – It is the risen Christ who is our head, and God has placed all things under his feet and given him supremacy over all things (Col 1:18) The head is the place in the body that directs every part. He knows the way we are going and what the best way to get there is Eph 1:22-23 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.
  • We are all ONE body – forget the way we think about students and workers,  male and female, internationals and locals or whatever other categories we put people into... whoever you are, wherever you're from, whatever you do... whether in Carrubbers, Liberia, Papua New Guinea, SE Asia, Syria, or wherever the church gathers… we are all ONE… we have the same Spirit in us... we are all brothers and sisters, in Carrubbers and across the world and one day will all be gathered together around the throne… We have one incredible hope, but while we are here on earth we need to care for each other as we would care for our own bodies: 1Cor 12 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Who do we need to be rejoicing or suffering with today?
  • We are all different – sometimes I struggle with comparing myself to others, and sometimes I want to gravitate to people like me… or people I like… but God has made each of us different because it is in this diversity He is reflected and glorified. We can see something of Him in each other. He has given different gifts to each of us for the edification of one another … so I need to be the best ME I can be, to encourage you to be who God made you to be, and to celebrate the differences we have. If we were all the same, we wouldn’t be a body 1 Cor 12:14-20
  • We need each other – we are all indispensable in the body of Christ… every single one of us is given gifts to serve and build up the church so that together we grow in maturity. Ephesians 4 : 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
  • We have gifts that are given to bless and build one another up – Ephesians 4 and 1 Cor 12 talks about the leadership we have been given - we need to pray for these folks as they use their gifts among us - but they re not the only ones who are gifted in church. Each one of us has been given gifts and are empowered by the spirit to use them (1 Cor 12:11). Using our gifts we all enable the body work properly so that we will all be build up. Eph 4 11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Now imagine attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ…

Praise God for making us the body of Christ!


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