Consider Your Part in the Body of Christ

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12-13 What if your hand was to stop functioning? Not that it couldn't function (I know some people have an issue with certain parts that WON'T work for health reasons), but that it just stopped because it felt that, as a body part, it had done all it could do. I know this is a silly example, and I have yet to reach the point, but I say all that to say this: this is exactly what many who proclaim Christ do when they become His follower. When we give ourselves to Jesus, we're not merely saved to be saved. We're saved for a purpose. We're saved for the fulfillment of God's glory, to be restored to His Image, that we may be with Him always. So what does that mean for us? We were not merely saved FROM something, but FOR something. God doesn't save us, seal is in a jar, and save us for resurrection. We're a part of the body. We each have our part, each have a function, and each are just as valuable to the body. With Christ as our head, we should ask Him about our purpose, ask the Holy Spirit to show us our gifts, and then use our gifts for the purposes of building the body up. I may not see my bones, but I am grateful for their structure, as I am for my face, and hands, and blood vessels, nerve endings, down to the function of the tiniest cell. Not every part is as prominent, but each is as important to the function of the health of my body. And so are you to the function of the Body of Christ. You are called, saved with a purpose, and that purpose is vital to the body. Live in and for Him, and watch as He shows you your function, and the fulfillment you feel in seeing it through. 1 Corinthians 12:14-27

For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.