THE BODY OF CHRIST (2 of 4)
(part
2 of a 4 part series)
“The
Lord gave the Word: great was the company of those that published it.” (Psalm
68:11).
All
spiritual gifts and ministries come from God and God alone. Though man may develop his natural talents
and abilities to the point that they may move the emotions and excite the
fleshly senses, they will not be truly anointed if they don’t have as their
source the Fountain of Living Waters.
God’s thoughts and His ways are not our thoughts and ways. There is a vast separation between what we
know, understand, and discern; and what God does. Just as the rain falls from heaven and waters
the ground causing every growing thing to sprout and blossom, so also does
God’s Word nourish His people and causes them to grow in Him (Isaiah
55:8-11). God’s Word is sure: it will
never return to Him without accomplishing the thing that it was sent to
do. Our words and thoughts are not so
accurate. That’s why it is essential for
each believer to learn to move by His Spirit and not in our own reasoning and
understanding. This is a critical aspect
of the Body of Christ and how it must function in order to bring the children
of God into full maturity in Christ.
As
believers we may often recognize a need around us and have a burden to minister
to that need in some way. We can try to
help by prayer, offering our assistance, speaking comforting words, or by
giving of our resources; but often it seems as though it is not enough to
really make a difference. It isn’t that
these things aren’t important acts of love and compassion; they are simply
missing the key ingredient that will satisfy the need of the heart. That thing is always Jesus! In spite of all our best words and all our
best actions, it is still Jesus that men want to see because He is the Way, the
Truth, and the Life. He is the Word of God and the express image of the
Godhead. When He speaks, it
inspires faith in people’s hearts, and they are comforted, reassured,
challenged, and healed. As members of
Christ’s Body on earth, we must learn to be His mouth, His hands,
and His feet. We mustn’t glorify
ourselves, our abilities, or our gifts.
We need to understand that we are merely fragile clay pots that God has
chosen to fill with the heavenly treasure of Himself. “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves
to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;
Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the
letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”
(1 Corinthians 3:5). As we each learn to
walk with the Lord in this life, and to follow the leading of His Holy Spirit,
we will be filled with His love and compassion.
He will breathe life into our words and actions. We can’t suppose that just quoting Bible
verses to others is going to be helpful if those words have not been made alive
and real by our intimate relationship with the Lord.
We
have a great example of all this in the story of Job. For all the good words that Job’s three
friends spoke to him to try and help him through his great trial, none of them
were able to touch their friend’s spirit and comfort him in his
difficulty. If anything, they merely
vexed him more with their accusations.
With all their years of knowledge and experience with their God, their
words still fell flat and Job was not brought any closer to the truth. It wasn’t until Job’s fourth friend, Elihu,
spoke up that things began to make sense.
Elihu was the youngest of all the men, and out of respect for their age
and experience, he held his piece until they all had exhausted their words. He said, “When I had waited, (for they
spake not, but stood still, and answered no more;) I said, I will answer also my part, I also
will shew mine opinion. For I am full of
matter [words], the spirit within me constraineth me. Behold, my belly is as wine which hath no
vent; it is ready to burst like new bottles.
I will speak, that I may be refreshed: I will open my lips and answer.” (Job
32:16-20). Clearly, what Elihu had to
say was bubbling up from the depths of his spirit. They were not just words based on what he
knew about God, but they were words that came out of a personal
relationship with God. His words
carried weight and power because they were God’s words and not his. When Elihu finished speaking, then God
Himself answered Job. In the end, God
rebuked Job’s three friends, saying, “My wrath is kindled against thee, and
against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is
right.” (Job 42:7). In the end,
God neither reproved nor commended Elihu – in fact, He didn’t mention him at
all. The servant of the Lord is content
to do the Lord’s will without seeking recognition or glory.
“If
thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy
day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and
shalt honour Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own
pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself
in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth,
and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath
spoken it.” (Isaiah 58:13, 14). The Sabbath is all about ceasing from our own
labors and entering into the rest of God.
God finished all His works in six days and sat down to rest. We cannot add to, or improve upon, what He
has done. He invites us to sit down with
Him and trust that what He has done is all sufficient. He wants us to learn to stop devising our own
way, pleasing ourselves, and speaking our own words. Instead, He wants us to seek His way, please
Him with our lives, and speak His words.
Once
when Jesus was teaching a large multitude of people in the wilderness, the
disciples recognized the need to feed them before sending them to their
homes. They were concerned that many
would be weak and perhaps faint on their way home after being in the wilderness
all day without eating. When they
expressed their concern to Jesus, He said to them, “Give ye them to eat.”
(Luke 9:13). Jesus is more than capable
of meeting every need Himself, but He chooses to let us be co-laborers with
Him. He wants to move through His Body,
and through our weakness show His awesome strength. The disciples found that they only had a few
small loaves of bread and two little fishes that a boy had brought for his
lunch, and they knew that would not be sufficient to meet the need. Jesus told them to bring the food to Him, and
when He had received it, He blessed it, broke it into portions, and gave it
back to the disciples to distribute to the people. In the disciple’s hands the bread and fish
kept multiplying until over 5000 people had eaten their fill! This is the secret of ministry. We must understand that what we have in
ourselves is never sufficient to meet the needs around us. However, if we will
take our lack, and our weakness, to Jesus, He will bless it and break it, and
we will see it become a miraculous supply.
We must never steal God’s glory afterwards! When God has manifested Himself through the
gifts and calling that He has given us, we mustn’t think that the glory is our
own and take credit for the work or boast of our being used. We have nothing spiritually that we have not
been given by God. We didn’t buy it, we
didn’t work for it: it was a gift of His grace.
By God’s grace we are what we are.
The best that we can do is keep our vessels clean inside and out so that
when He does choose to fill our cup, we can pour it out to others untainted by
our own sin and carnality.
Scripture
says, “…unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure
of the gift of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:7).
There is no one in the Kingdom of God who is exempt from receiving a
gift of God’s grace. We are told, “When
He [Jesus] ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave
gifts unto men.” (Ephesians 4:8).
What are these gifts that God has given each one who believes? We are told in the very next verse: “And
he gave some [to be], apostles; and some [to be], prophets; and
some [to be], evangelists; and some [to be], pastors and teachers;
for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the
edifying of the body of Christ: till we all come in the unity of the faith, and
of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the
stature of the fullness of Christ…” (vs. 11-13). It is these ministries, along with various
gifts of the Spirit, which God has distributed to the members of His Body, and
it is these that will ultimately bring the body of Christ into perfection and
cause us to grow into full maturity in Christ.
Paul
tells us in 1 Corinthians 12 that there are a variety of different spiritual
gifts, but it is the same Holy Spirit that operates through them all. There are also many different ministries
within the Body, but it is the same Lord working in and through them all. Finally, there are differences in the way the
gifts and ministries may operate, but it is God Who is at work in every
one. There may be two teachers or two
evangelists whose ministries operate very differently from one another even
though they have the same gift. The
important thing is that the Body is edified because the Spirit is allowed to
move through each individual. “But
the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.” (1
Corinthians 12:7).
Besides
the “big 5” ministries that Paul mentions in Ephesians 4, he lists many more in
1 Corinthians 12. “For to one is
given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word
of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the
same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;
to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy;
to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds
of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues…” (1
Corinthians 12:8-10; see also v. 28).
Just as each individual is unique and diverse from every other person in
the world, so also are the ways in which each member in the Body of Christ
operates and manifests the Spirit through the gifts they have been given. “But all these worketh that one and the
selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will.” (1
Corinthians 12:11). God chooses the
gifts and ministries that He bestows on His people. It is not for us to select the ones that we
deem the best, or that we think we might be best suited to. He knows us better than we know ourselves and
therefore gives gifts as it pleases Him.
We may think that we are not able to do the work that the Lord gives us;
but we must remember that it is God Who is working in us, and He gives us the
willingness and the ability to do His will.
We can indeed do all things through Christ Who strengthens us
(Philippians 2:13; 4:13). We all know
that Jeremiah was a mighty prophet of the Lord, yet he questioned God
concerning the work that He gave him to do saying, “Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I
cannot speak: for I am a child.” (Jeremiah 1:6). God’s response was, “Say not, I am a
child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I
command thee thou shalt speak.” (v. 7).
Timing
is also important in God’s Kingdom. God
has a time and a purpose for everything He does. Solomon in his great wisdom wrote, “To
everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.” (Ecclesiastes
3:1). Though we may know what God wants
us to say or do, it is also important to learn when He wants us to do it. I knew two Christian men who were rooming
together years ago. The one had a burden
for a woman and her daughter that they knew were in need of assistance. He went out and bought several bags of
groceries and brought them home to ask his roommate if he would go with him to
deliver the food. His roommate said he
thought they should wait a few days before they took the groceries to the
sister. The first brother agreed to do
so, and after a few days they agreed it was time to go. When these two brothers in Christ showed up
at the sister’s house, she and her daughter had just finished eating a baked
potato which they split between the two of them. This was the last food they had in the house. Needless to say, there was great joy in that
house as the brothers hauled in many bags of food! Romans 12:7 uses the phrase “…let us wait
on our ministering.” It is important
for us to be sensitive to the prompting of the Spirit and wait to use our gifts
when He urges us to.
As
we learn to be sensitive to the voice and leading of the Holy Spirit in our
lives, the Body of Christ will begin to see remarkable growth. There are many things that have been lost to
the Church since the first century that God wants to restore in these last
days. It is going to take some faithful
believers who are willing to carry the Ark into the River Jordan and stand
there until all of Israel passes over into the Land of Promise! God has called us to be a holy nation of
kings and priests under Him. It is high
time that we awake out of our slumber and answer His calling.
“The
Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to
speak a word in season to him that is weary: He wakeneth morning by morning, He
wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.” (Isaiah
50:4).
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