God loves his bride, the body of Christ. He looks at us through the precious blood of His Son, Jesus, and He see's nothing that we have done in our past, He see's nothing that once held us down, because as the body of Christ, we are under that cleansing blood of Jesus. So when He looks at us, He see's our great potential! He knows the power house that we can be! He knows what great things can be accomplished for the good when the body of Christ comes together in unity, when we combine our resources to do some good stuff for the Kingdom of God, when we walk in love in every area of our life, to everyone we come in contact with. That's the body of Christ at it's finest. And He knows it.
But I wonder today, do we know it? Do we really comprehend the power that resides in the body of Christ? Do we fully allow the body to work the way that it was intended to work? Or do we let offense set it, do we dwell on the negative things going on around us, do we deem the job to big or the problem insurmountable? Hmm. I just wonder.
The job is big. The problem does indeed seem insurmountable. Unity in the body of Christ? Too hard. Or is it?
Jesus said that the Harvest is plentiful but that the workers are few. So if the Harvest is there, I guess all that's needed is the workers to plow the fields. And who are the workers? Its you, it's me, it's our brother's and it's our sisters. It's the amazing, fantastic, beautiful, intelligent, gifted, anointed, loving and caring body of Christ. It's His bride. It's His church. It's His people.
I love 1 Corinthians chapter 12. So much in there to glean from. But let's look at verse 27. It say's, "Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually."
Each one of us is unique to the body of Christ. Each of us has something different to bring to the table. As I was baking the other day, I was reminded of this very thing. Often in baking you mix the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients separately. As I was mixing the flour, the salt & the baking soda, I was thinking how gross that would taste by itself. And even as you mix the wet ingredients, granted it's often with sugar & butter so it's a tad more palatable, but still, not a great taste. But then you put it all together and voila, you have baked goodness. Apart from one another, they just don't function to their fullest potential, but together, they bring delight to all who partake...think about that for a moment. Hmmm.
And now let's not forget the chocolate chips! Now they can stand on their own can't they? They taste good before being added to the dry & wet ingredients, I'm sure we can all attest to sneaking one or two or twenty chocolate chips while baking cookies. Even though they taste good alone, they taste even BETTER combined. There true flavor comes out in the baking process. Oh goodness, there's another analogy. Someone stop me!
I've decided that I want to be a chocolate chip in the body of Christ. I want to be a person that is strong enough to stand on my own. Like a great verse I read in 1 Corinthians, it's 6:13 and it say's, "Watch, stand fast in faith, be brave, be strong." I want to live that verse. I want to be brave and strong. I want to be able to stand on my own, IF I HAD TO. I'm a chocolate chip! Yes, I want to be able to stand on my own, but I don't want to have to. I want to be the ingredient that when combined with all the other individual ingredients, something greater comes out of me.
In order to be that, I've got to do my part to represent the body of Christ well. I've got to live offense free, probably the hardest thing to do, in my opinion. I've got to keep my mouth shut like the old saying goes, "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." I've got to be careful not to carry someone else's offense. I've got to let God be the judge of others, it's not up to me. I dwell on that topic for a moment because I believe it's one of the biggest dividers in the body of Christ. We take up one another's offense, without having all the facts about a situation, we jump on the band wagon and call it truth, while leaving a wake of dissension in our dust. It's awful to see happen and unfortunately I've seen it happen all too often. It's hard for folks to recover from offense that leads to division. It's hard for the body of Christ as a whole, but furthermore, it's hard for the individual. Offense can shipwreck your faith, causing you to believe that God is somehow the author of a mess like that...when all along it really was the devil, just orchestrating a situation, all for the sake of destroying a member of the body.
I much prefer talking about chocolate than I do the devil, so let's get back to being a chocolate chip! To be the chocolate chip, we have to be offense free. We have to bridle our tongue. We should be the most encouraging group of people that folks are plain annoyed by our joy! And yet, they can't help but be intrigued by it. We are to be "doers of the Word and not just hearers." So in other words, as my handsome, bald husband says, "we should not just be butts in the seats but we should be boots on the streets!" Let's get out into the world and do something for the Kingdom!
The body of Christ is truly precious. I'm so so so so happy to be a part of it. I love my brothers and my sisters. Does offense come? Oh ya. But I'm aware of it. I know it's just the devil and not the person. Do I get grumpy? Yep. Do I fail often? Yep and yep and yep. But the beauty of a chocolate chip is that regardless of the shape it's in, it still tastes good when mixed with others. I may be a mess of a mess, but doggonit, I'm a pretty tasty chocolate chip! How about you?
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