Welcome to the Come to Jesus Daily Devotional as we continue in our series, God’s vision for the church. Today, we reflect on how one can be joined to Jesus’ body.
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‘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 baptised 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.’ (1 Corinthians 12:12-14)
We are given the metaphor of a body in order to help us to understand the nature of the church. Today, we simply want to ask, how does one get joined to the body of Christ?
Firstly, it’s crucial that we understand that joining a church is not the same as being joined to the body of Christ! Going to church meetings, serving on a team, being put on the membership list… is in no way the same as being joined to Christ. The metaphor of the body teaches us that to be joined to Christ a miracle must occur. Rather like a human body receiving a transplant, maybe of a heart or kidney etc. so we need to be joined to Christ in a true and profound way.
One gets ‘grafted into’ Christ by The Holy Spirit. Through the baptism by the Spirit, we are joined to Christ. This is a deep mystery and is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian and what it means to be a member of the church. we see that the initiative and work is done by God in the words: ‘…baptised by one Spirit…given the one Spirit to drink…’ Our salvation is supernatural and so is accomplished by The Holy Spirit.
However, although salvation is the free gift of God, from our experience we have a sense of conviction of sin, the reality of God, the truth of the cross and we choose to repent and believe the gospel. Peter speaks of our need to respond:
‘Peter replied, “Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”’ (Acts 2:38-39)
So, in essence, we could summarise things: in order to be united to Christ and born again, one has to repent and believe the gospel, which is the result of The Holy Spirit working in us. One does not join the church through the faith of our family, through baptism, through going to church, through doing a course… one joins the church by being united to Christ through new birth by the Spirit.
So is it wrong to do some form of joining the church course? No, I would say that it’s very important that any church has some sort of joining the church or membership course. This is important because It’s vital that anyone joining a church knows what they are joining and that the pastors know who is looking to join. It’s vital that new people are taught about important truths, such are we’re looking at today, because many people are quite unaware of the true nature of salvation and what a church is.
Response
Are you are member of Jesus’ church? Have you been born again of the Spirit? Have you been joined to Christ by the Spirit? How would you know? A simple ‘fruit’ of being joined to Christ by the Spirit is that you love Jesus and His people. If one is joined to Christ, you will grow more and more into the likeness of the one who loves His church.
Together meeting notes
At this week’s 'Together' evening, we will continue to reflect on our 'God's vision for the church' vision series. This week, we consider what it means for the church to be the body of Christ.
‘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 baptised 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.’ (1 Corinthians 12:12-14)
Discuss:
What sorts of things does this metaphor of the body of Christ mean for how the church relates and operates?
What does it mean to be ‘baptised by one Spirit’? (Be careful to read the context of this phrase).
Read 1 Corinthians 12:27-31 and discuss: how have you grown in your gifts in the past? How are you or could you grow in your gifts in the present?
Pray together:
Pray for CCP to be a healthy body - united, diverse and submitted to Jesus our ‘head’.
Pray for your Community Group meetings to be places where we meet God in the Spirit and use our gifts to build one another up.
Pray for one another to be filled with the Spirit afresh so as to be empowered to use our gifts with greater effectiveness.
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