Do you know where you belong today? Where are you accepted? Where do you fit in? What is your position in life? Do you want to know where you belong, where you fit in, what your position is? Do you know you can find it?
In our culture today, it seems as though everyone wants to be an individual, standing out for who they are. Teamwork is rarely seen outside of sports and in some workplaces. Everyone is seeking their place, desiring acceptance.
Paul doesn’t use the word teamwork when describing the church. Instead, he uses an even better word–body. We all understand that our own bodies are made up of different parts. We know our hands serve one purpose, while our feet serve a different one. Our eyes are part of our navigation system, and our ears are part of our early warning system.
We know having all body parts functioning properly and coordinating with one another is key to a full life. It is the same for the body of Christ, our church body. Each one of us has been gifted by the Holy Spirit with one or more gifts for the purpose of edifying and strengthening the body.
Some are gifted to preach. Others are gifted to teach. Still others are gifted to serve. Some of us are gifted to take care of and serve those who are already in the body. Others are gifted to build the body up by reaching out to people and bringing them into the body.
It takes all of us working together as one body, each performing our task based on the gifts we have been given to make the church function as one body. It takes all of us setting aside our personal agendas in order to accomplish God’s plan. It takes each one of us seeing every person we meet as a child of God.
I pray we all see ourselves as a part of one body. I pray we seek to discover our place within the body. I pray each one of us will put our spiritual gifts to work within the body of Christ. Know you are part of the body of Christ. Put your gifts to work. Play your part. Use your gifts. Build up the body.
1 Corinthians 12:12-14 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 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. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
Marty Pressey 