“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 12:12-13 ESV)
When we believe in Jesus Christ to be Lord and Savior of our lives, we die with Christ to sin, and we are raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, no longer to live as slaves to sin but now as slaves to God and to his righteousness. We also enter into a spiritual marriage covenant with Christ whereby we become his bride and he becomes our husband and so we are now to be faithful to him as our only Lord (Owner-Master). And we also become members of his body, the church, the people of God.
So all of us who are of genuine faith in Jesus Christ are now part of the body of Christ, his church, the one and only church of God, with Jesus Christ as our only head. And this is the universal body of Christ who all make up one church, but we live in different places and so we gather in different locations, too. And each one of us has a participatory part in this body which we are to do as gifted by God, as equipped by the Lord, and as assigned by God to varying areas of ministry and service within the body of Christ.
Now this has nothing to do with the institutional church which is a creation of man and which is incorporated as a business under the state. These “churches” are institutions and businesses of human making and origin which are being marketed to the world just like any other business. So they mostly are all diluting and altering the gospel and the character of God to make them more acceptable and agreeable to human flesh. And they alter the biblical character of “church” to draw in people from the world.
So just because it is called “church” does not mean that it is the body of Christ comprised of those who are of genuine faith in Jesus Christ with Christ as their only head operating as the biblical body of Christ in order to do the will and purpose of God for his church. So many of them today are these human based businesses being marketed to the world, and so they are mostly not following our Lord’s design for his church, but they are following marketing people’s design for these businesses called “church.”
“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.” (1 Corinthians 12:21-26 ESV)
Now, because so much of what is called “church” here in America are these institutions of human making which are being marketed to the world, they are being designed to attract the world to their gatherings. And many of the pastors of these “churches” are being trained in how to market their “churches” to the people of the world. Since most of these are not the biblical body of Christ operating as the biblical body of Christ, but they are following marketing books, then we have much of “I don’t need you.”
And that is because Jesus is not the head of these “churches,” and they are not following the leading of the Holy Spirit, but they are following after the spirits of the flesh, and are learning what to do to make people want to come to their gatherings. I know! I was once a church planter along with my husband and we went to some of their training. And we were told to use “needy” people to get up and running, but once we were up and running we should get rid of the “needy” people or they will drag us down. Wow!
And I had at least one pastor tell me that he was warned about people like me, i.e. “people with strong convictions.” And he was warned in his marketing training to get rid of people like me. At first he told me that I was to let him be God’s voice to me, in place of God, but then he invited me to go someplace else where I would be “a better fit.” I did not fit there or anywhere that “the church” was a business being marketed to the world, for they rejected my body part, for it would not draw in large crowds.
But this should not be! As Christians we are not to be trying to attract the world to our gatherings via marketing schemes and tricks and entertainment and the altering and diluting of the gospel message to make it more acceptable to the ungodly of the world. We are not supposed to be inviting the world into our fellowships. We are supposed to be going out into the world to reach them for Christ, and via genuine faith in the Lord then they become part of the body of Christ, his church.
But as the body we are all given different assignments from God which we are to fulfill. And these are biblical assignments, not fleshly assignments of men who want to attract the world to their gatherings. And we have all been given spiritual gifts which we are to utilize within the body of Christ to minister to one another. So we would do well to study the Scriptures and what they teach our gatherings should be like and how we are to operate as the body of Christ so that we aren’t telling those who are walking in fellowship with the Lord that we have no need of them. We do need them!
[Matt 5:13-16; Matt 28:18-20; Jn 4:31-38; Jn 13:13-17; Jn 14:12; Acts 1:8; Acts 2:14-18; Acts 26:18; Rom 10:14-15; Rom 12:1-8; Rom 15:14; 1 Co 12:1-31; 1 Co 14:1-5; Gal 6:1; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:1-16; Eph 5:11-27; Eph 6:10-20; Php 2:1-8; Col 1:9; Col 3:12-16; Tit 2:11-14; Heb 3:13; Heb 10:23-25; Jas 5:19-20; 1 Pet 2:9,21; 1 Jn 2:6]
Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,
Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;
Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;
Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrYhiK2nQBg
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